Examination
by DrerrRedclaw
Summary: Rite of passage. Mark of progress. Things change; adapt or die. :futurefic; slight AU; slight ooc due to maturity; secondary AACs: :NejSak; NarHin; ShiTem; KibIno: Finished.
1. Prologue

Examination: Prologue

Hyuuga Neji knew calls for help were infrequent in the training areas just to the east of Konohagakure, and too often tragic when they were issued.

And so it was that he was barreling at full tilt through the branches, unable to ignore the high-pitched and increasingly desperate pleas for assistance echoing through the canopy. The greater part of him devoted to duty spurred him on, to render assistance to the apparently dying young kunoichi somewhere over the next hill. An only slightly lesser part of him devoted to pride cherished his new, more senior rank within the ANBU -- no slight feat at nineteen -- and it would be a heavy blow to fail at this. Perhaps the smallest part of him knew it was probably noble to render aid, but no thoughts crossed through his mind besides the preparation of his combat abilities in that moment.

His legs unfurled beneath him, propelling him in an arc of acrobatic distance and balletic grace, even while his hands hammered out the seals of a ritual as old as his family. His feet had not yet touched the next branch before his eyes bloomed with the byakugan and the world laid bare its secrets to his gaze.

So he knew things were already not as he'd imagined them before he leapt over the final rise, over a stream and into the sandy pit that lined its bend.

Through the hill, he could see there were three chakra systems. Not a genin team, however, as genin teams typically did not contain recently-dead, sixty-foot serpents from the Forest of Death nearby. Nor was a genin's chakra the sickly, untrained yellow of the prone body lying not ten feet from the maw of that great snake; a snake whose head had been apparently caved in by nothing less than a meteor strike. And a genin's chakra was not the brilliant golden color of an exceptionally well-trained and well-honed kunoichi, who was, it turned out, the source of the calls for help.

Worse, on closer inspection, the body was that of a pregnant woman, coughing blood and already sweating with a pale sheen of death despite the best efforts of one Haruno Sakura. Sakura, who, with one hand was drawing out what seemed like an interminable fount of the clear, necrotizing poison from the woman's lungs. Sakura, whose other hand was occupied trying to keep the woman's heart beating with a pulsing stream of chakra from her other hand. Sakura, who, all the while, was screaming for help and letting free more curses than Neji knew existed.

She looked up at once, and her eyes locked onto his with the fiercest glare he'd probably ever seen from someone he was not actively trying to kill.

"If you're done staring, asshole," she very nearly growled, "get down here."

Not being one to explain himself, he merely knelt by the victim, opposite her.

"Instructions," he said, a single word neither question nor statement. She was the medic, after all.

"Can you keep her heart going?" she asked, her tone nearly pleading, a far cry from her anger. "Please tell me someone's taught you how."

Neji nodded. It was a basic medic skill, more effective than the physical compressions and breathing taught to unskilled genin, and required learning for all ANBU. Without a word, he simply scooted in to lean over the dying woman's chest and began metering out chakra from his fingertips in a steady rhythm. Even so, this was not something he could do without both hands.

Sakura let free a heavy sigh as he took over, sweeping a bloody hand across her forehead to shift her bangs, leaving a crimson streak across her cheek, a gradient of gore that faded into the soft pink of her naturally unnatural hair. Still drawing poison, though now from the woman's blood itself, she closed her eyes, and Neji fairly goggled in amazement as she contorted her one free hand through a series of seals and began to close the major wound.

"Oh, gods, sweetheart. I hope you'll be alright," she said, in a low whisper.

"Her heart..," he began, but she cut him off with a curt nod.

"I know. It's too far gone with this poison still in her. I'll need at least another trained medic to stabilize her properly."

"He's not a medic," Neji said, tilting his head up in the direction of a new voice. "But it's a start."

Naruto was shouting from the top of the sand pit, twigs and leaves still clinging to him where he'd gone crashing through the brush.

"What's going on down there?"

"Get me a medic! Shizune, Hitomi, anyone! Anyone you can find!" she screamed back. Naruto, to his credit, didn't think twice and disappeared before either of them could blink.

"At least he's fast," she said, groaning with exertion as the persistent multitasking began to take its toll.

She began to work again in earnest, no longer sparing the energy to swear, her frail-seeming body shaking as she manipulated strings of chakra more complicated than anything he'd ever tried over and over again. Minutes flew as her fingers found within themselves an entire surgical kit summoned from the ethers of her imagination. Here her fingers pulled the ends of vessels together, there a strand of her life nourished a strand of her patient's and knit the torn flesh somehow.

And despite the miracle worker kneeling opposite him, Neji could not tear his eyes away from the patient herself. There was something very profoundly wrong with the woman for whose heartbeat he'd been made responsible, and it started with her eyes.

Blindness was anathema to his clan, blessed as they were with the all-encompassing sight of gods. Here was a woman whose eyes, white and clouded as his own, stared up at him, sightless. She'd had irises once, but now they were occluded by opaque grey scars.

Judging by the jagged lines cut into her face from her eyebrows to her cheeks, some healed, some still fresh and raw...her blindness was self-inflicted.

Neji's stomach nearly turned with the realization.

Sakura's whispering, at first below the threshold of his hearing, grew louder with each passing second, and soon he realized she was chanting "C'mon, c'mon, c'mon". In the wound, muscle fused clumsily and sealed with scar tissue, and her mantra of self-encouragement rose to a crescendo and stopped as she looked up at him and grinned.

He wasn't sure he'd seen anyone smile at him like this, not at this range, not that close. The smear of blood, dirt, and sweat creeping down the side of her face from her forehead did nothing to dilute the intensity of that smile, just before everything went to hell.

"Well done, Haruno," he said, and in the half-second of peace they had between them she almost had time to blush.

Their patient came suddenly to life, screeching and thrashing beneath his hands and he realized to his horror that while she was making her escape attempt he was losing his already precarious grip on her heart. Sakura, for the first time since he'd arrived, looked at a total loss before she shook herself free from her stupor and jumped onto the woman's nearest arm and leg in an attempt to restrain her.

Neji, for his part, was too busy dodging the clawed fingers that whipped around his head and face, their nails still bloody from the damage they'd inflicted upon their owner's eyes and face already.

"Haruno! Her pulse is speeding up!"

He could feel it, that precious, fluttering organ through the flesh and bone of the woman's ribcage, accelerating, pushing beyond the limits of its already weakened state, shuddering until it quivered too fast to push blood through her arteries.

He didn't have the knowledge to chase away the native chakra powering the woman's tachycardia, and Sakura was already too exhausted to make good on even her redoubled efforts to stop the seizure.

And then she was entirely still.

What was left of the woman's eyes rolled back up into their sockets. Her head fell to the sand and rolled towards Sakura, and Neji was faintly grateful he didn't have to look at those dead eyes any longer.

Another minute passed, and a slow, agonized moan escaped the curtain of stained pink hair drooping around Sakura's lowered face.

"You...you can stop now, Neji," she said, because even after death, Neji was still trying to keep that heart moving. "She's gone."

"What about the child?"

Sakura went rigid, galvanized with new strength, and there was no hesitation as she willed a scalpel into being and slashed through what was left of the corpse's dress, through the great bulge of what was once a woman's womb, and then plunged her hands into the gap. The cuts bled, and only because Neji was still trying to force blood through that defunct system.

The silence, now unbearable, was broken with a tiny, throaty yowl, one that grew in volume as Sakura began to cry alongside the tiny, incarnadine creature in her arms.

"It's...it's a girl," she breathed between sobs. "She needs...she needs to go to the hospital. Now. As fast...as you can."

She held out the child, and Neji found himself doing something he'd never imagined he would ever have to do. Somewhere behind him Sakura collapsed onto the sand and he wondered if he should have brought her along as well.

OoOoOoOoO

At best, the Hyuuga compound was a daunting edifice, an architectural exercise in flawlessness and scale. Standing beneath the main portico before a pair of ten-foot, copper-clad gates, Sakura had a sneaking suspicion that what she was feeling now was precisely the emotion it had been designed to inspire, although in truth she wasn't sure if it was the building or the person she'd come to see that was making her want to discretely turn about and head home.

Despite her long-standing friendship with the somewhat abnormal Hyuuga who went by the name of Hinata, she knew about as much as any other citizen of Konaha about this reclusive clan, which was to say, virtually nothing besides the fact that they were politically and financially powerful.

The feeling didn't last long, though, quelled by something her mentor and Hokage Tsunade had hammered into her skull over diplomatic briefs and negotiation adjournments: the more powerful someone appears, the more they have to hide, so screw them. If Tsunade had terrible luck and was a horrible gambler, she was a far better bluffer and caller in a position where chance had less sway, and Sakura took those lessons to heart.

And so she swung the giant knocker with as much visible effort as though it had been made of paper.

After a pause, a slit opened in the door, and she took the opportunity to introduce herself and her reasons for coming. Another pause, and someone in the coarse but surprisingly elegant dress of a house servant appeared to direct her around a the corner to a small side access cut through the great wall surrounding the compound.

Perplexed, she made her way there and knocked again, this time on the unassuming single door, and was admitted with considerably less hassle by the same servant. When they emerged from the short stairwell into a small courtyard, Sakura was forced to admit she knew even less about the Hyuuga than she'd thought she had.

She'd assumed, perhaps, that the inner grounds would be dominated by training areas, dusty and packed with practitioners of the proprietary jyuuken and target mannequins, an assumption based on Hinata's description of her daily exercises and exacerbated by descriptions of Neji's even more draconian regime. Instead she was brought into a gorgeous, traditional garden which complemented the buildings around it so well that she was unsure if it had been built to accent them or the other way around.

She was still marveling at the garden when she was introduced to a waiting room in the side of what was the largest building by the gardens. As she took a seat at the low table, the servant retreated back onto the outer walkway but left the screen open so Sakura might continue to admire the spread of spring blossoms as she was so clearly doing.

Neji introduced himself to his unscheduled guest not long afterward.

"Good afternoon, Haruno," he said, face neutral and voice flat, a different person from the intent and compassionate man she'd last seen sprinting out of her training pit with a newborn not a week ago. "What brings you here?"

"Well," she said, and found herself grateful for the short interruption offered by the servant returning with tea. "I wanted to thank you for your help last week. You know, when that girl...and I..."

"Of course. You are welcome."

"I wasn't really expecting anyone to show up, right? It was already terribly late and I wasn't at all prepared to have to deal with anything like that. One minute I'm pounding away at the sand there, and the next there's this giant snake that comes crashing down into the river and she starts screaming."

Neji took a sip from his cup and cradled it in his fingers.

"I guess she got bit up at the top of the cliff and fell and the snake just followed her down so I just reacted and hit it and I knew I had to do something because that is what I'm trained for after all. But then I started on her and realized she'd been hit really badly with the poison and her heart stopped the first time and there were just about a million things I ended up having to do so I just started shouting and you showed up.

"So thank you."

"As I said, you are welcome. I am sure any of us would have done the same."

Despite herself Sakura realized she'd been rambling because she was just slightly out of breath. After all her words, the uncomfortable pall of ensuing silence was even more disconcerting and she found herself reaching for the tea to find a way to give herself an excuse for not trying to fill it with more words.

And stopped, when Neji actually spoke, unbidden.

"Has there been an autopsy?"

Perhaps a slightly morbid question, but a valid one nonetheless, and she settled for holding the cup instead of drinking from it right away. The ceramic was warm and smooth in her fingers, the rough ring of its base balanced in her palm.

"Well, yes. Shizune took care of it. Why do you ask?"

"Her eyes. I thought she had injured them."

"Yeah, she did. She heavily scarred her corneas over a period of several months, so she must have been blind or very nearly. It explains how she ended up so far off the main road, at least."

She drank now, looking over the rim of her cup and found that Neji's brow wrinkled beneath the bindings around his forehead. He was either deep in thought or profoundly uncomfortable, which made it oddly easier for her to breathe.

"I...see," he said, and he seemed perturbed by his own awareness of the pun.

"Shizune says she might have been under the influence of genjutsu as well -- there was something wrong with her head, anyway, and it's been chronic. Maybe as many as eight or nine months."

"That would be traumatic, no? In particular for a civilian?"

Sakura shrugged.

"Certainly. It's always hard to say exactly what happens to the untrained because there are very few ninja -- even among those that would treat non-combatants poorly -- that would bother with genjutsu on someone who was no threat. There's not a lot of data on the effects of powerful, targeted genjutsu being used like that."

After all, genjutsu was typically used to gain the upper hand over someone who was too strong physically to risk dealing with in direct conflict or to guarantee a certain kill.

"That would...be dishonorable."

"She must have suffered, yeah. I can't imagine, wandering like that, tortured and blind. And pregnant. I can barely imagine that by itself."

"Where does she come from?"

"No idea. My best guess would be somewhere near Nami no Kuni, she has the right kind of face. Not that I mean those people have a certain face, just that there are trends in population genetics. In any case, judging by her clothes and the wear, she's been on the road a long time."

"There have been no wars in that region lately. A missing-nin, perhaps. I will check with the bingo book tomorrow."

Sakura wasn't sure if he was actually talking to her or not, so she finished her drink, glad to be done with it before it got cold.

"Um. By the way, Naruto's adopted her. The child."

Cup half-way to his lips, Neji stopped cold and frowned.

"Excuse me?"

"Naruto. Adopted the baby. I thought you might want to know, since you, um, reminded me." She'd been wracked by guilt all week, wretched that she'd lost track of the child in the chaos of her failed resuscitation attempt, nearly let it die through her own negligence, and she fought to keep her voice clear.

"If this is a joke, Haruno, it is not a very funny one."

"No joke. He was there when I finally made it back to the hospital, arguing with Tsunade about it. I guess he won her over...but you know how seriously he takes his promises. And he's an orphan himself, after all."

"All the more reason to doubt his parenting. You have a point about his promises, however."

"Besides which, Hinata volunteered to help, so at least he won't be completely alone. I mean, I will too, I feel responsible. She won't lack for relatives, in any case," Sakura said, and that thought, at least, was a pleasant one.

They were all young, painfully so to be dealing with these issues but one could do worse for an impromptu family she supposed. Despite the third Hokage's patronage, Naruto had been alone for all too many years, and that was a travesty of justice. More so knowing what he was and what a risk the village had run alienating a bijuu.

Neji scowled.

"That does sound like my cousin. I do not see what she sees in him, but it is not my place to interfere."

"Well, whatever she's thinking, maybe it'll work this time." She bit her lip, glanced aside, out into the garden and the pastel clouds of petals and budding leaves swaying in the wind.

"One more thing," Neji said. "Why do you suppose this woman was afraid of you?"

Sakura's jaw dropped, and she turned back to him in awe.

"If _that_ is a joke, Neji, it isn't funny."

"She was very nearly stable by the time you closed her wound. She did not have her episode until I said your name, and as I do not generally refer to you by your given name, it was a reaction to at the very least a somewhat rare family name."

"I don't...I don't know. I don't know her, Neji, and who knows what exactly triggered it. I haven't been to that area in a long time, and I don't remember anyone who would have looked like her."

Neji settled back on his heels, gazing slightly upward, no doubt mulling over his curious find. He stayed that way for what felt like an eternity, while Sakura ran through the few faces she remembered distinctly.

"No, no one like her," she said, with certain finality. And then with so much more trepidation she almost could not recognize herself, "That was...the first time I've ever lost a patient."

Neji said nothing but when she dared to look up he was looking back at her, and she averted her eyes from the bottomless white stare. She knew he could see more than she ever could, and deeper, and she was compelled to make good on the promise she'd made to herself before going to his family's manse.

"I've never had anyone die on me before," she said, and the hem of her collar was rough between her nervous fingers. "I just...I was shocked, okay? I didn't mean to forget about the baby. I wouldn't have, normally. It won't happen again."

"You need not tell me," he said, and she was almost angry at how jaded he made himself seem when she knew he was at least compassionate enough to have reminded her of the child in the heat of the moment.

"I just don't want you to think I'm incompetent," she said, her voice dropping a fifth and her eyes already half-way to a glare as they came up from the table.

"I did not think that."

His eyes seemed somehow softer this time despite the fact that his face was still a blank mask as it always was, and she couldn't explain to herself why she was suddenly comforted. Maybe it was because she'd been expecting to defend herself, maybe she'd been expecting something snide or derogatory, and maybe she'd done him a disservice by assuming that. Maybe it was because she'd been accusing herself of malpractice all week and he'd been the only witness.

"Furthermore," he added, "my approval or disapproval holds no water in medical matters."

Gods help her, she was embarrassed.

"Neji...you're not exactly who I thought you were. Thank you."

"Quite," he said, "You are also not exactly who I thought you were."

She almost laughed. The statement was utterly strange, coming from him, but if nothing else she'd learned everything she knew about Hyuuga Neji was apparently bunk anyway so she settled for a smile instead.

"Ten years is a long time, after all. Things change," she said.

She got a smirk in response.

"More tea?"


	2. 1: Family

Examination: Family

"Meat on a stick," Inuzuka Kiba said, with all the pomp and poise of a lecturing professor, "has gotta be the most awesome thing since people figured out fire."

"Hurf," Akimichi Chouji snorted in agreement, sucking the broiled flesh of an unfortunate ex-chicken from a skewer bound to join one of its many, many expired brethren on the stand counter. Yamanaka Ino just sighed, rolled her eyes, and resumed building a miniature log house out of Chouji's discarded skewers, picking at them gingerly with slender fingers.

"No, seriously. You can tell how cool a place is from their street meat. And this," Kiba said, gesturing wildly behind him with his own skewer at roughly eye level, "has to be the world capital of street meat."

Behind him sprawled the chaos of Sunagakure's central bazaar, a teeming square of narrow footpaths winding their way through a throughly disorganized warren of cloth-roofed stalls. Gold glinted and spices ran rampant through the air, and he was satisfied beyond compare with the kebab counter he'd sniffed out for lunch.

"You're eating a scorpion," Uzumaki Haruka muttered, disgusted, "and it's still moving."

"She has a point," said Ino, pointing a skewer all the way down to the far end of the counter where Kiba's students were sitting. Even Chouji found the time to shoot Kiba a questioning look over a dripping stick of goat.

"I know!" he said, crowing, "Isn't it great? You don't find stuff like this at home."

Kiba's teeth flashed for a second in the light, a slow lingering second before the crunch. All three of his genin, and the six of his fellow instructors, gave up a chorus of sick moans. Well, at least Akamaru would have agreed, but he was stuck outside the city walls, hunting up his own fresh meat.

"It's like, kind of nutty. Like, uh, cashews, maybe? Not as good as the snake, though. I need to get another one of those."

"Oh, really? Which, the rattlesnake or the sidewinder?"

Sure, Haruka was being sarcastic and her voice was positively dripping with false enthusiasm, but he wasn't going to let her take the satisfaction of thinking he'd gotten the hint. Instead he just lifted his fingers to get the vendor's attention again.

"Rattler. Sidewinder was a bit chewy, and the sauce wasn't as good. And a little grainy. Y'know how duck is different from chicken? Kind of like that. But the rattler? Like heaven."

"On a stick," Ino added.

"On a stick!" he said with much joy, taking the meat from the vendor and hoisting it into the air as his own personal battle standard.

"Ugh," she said, balking at the description. "I think I'm quite done. Kids, let this be a lesson to you all: eating scorpions makes your brain go funny."

"I don't think it was the scorpion, Ino-sensei."

Ino laughed, Chouji guffawed because someone with a chest cavity that large could hardly do less, and Kiba didn't even bother to answer as he chewed on the soft, gorgeous cut of serpent fillet, mulling the spices across his tongue as he did. If they couldn't appreciate it, that meant more for him.

He'd never have guessed ten, no, twenty years ago that he would have ended up here, shepherding three slightly hyperactive genin around the maze of domed buildings that made up Sunagakure and buying them lunch before the second round of their examinations. Ten years ago, he would have imagined himself as a swashbuckling rogue of a ninja, traveling the world and perpetually surrounded by girls enamored with the legend of Inuzuka Kiba.

Well, at least he was perpetually surrounded by girls, though when he'd received notice of his team assignment he'd cursed whatever god had taken his dream quite so literally.

There were three of them, all more or less twelve. First was Aburame Kiyoka, about as pure and naive as her name suggested and given over to him because he was the only current teaching jounin with any experience whatsoever with the insects her family used to fight with. Nakamura Nanami was the seventh child of a merchant family and the only one crazy enough to want to be a ninja; he didn't dispute her parents' evaluation. And then there was Naruto's adopted girl, Haruka, generally quiet and serious but capable of more sarcasm than even Akamaru was, which meant more often than not he was getting it from two directions in as many languages.

Ino and Chouji, teaching jounins also, were along with their teams as well, three of the only four Konoha had submitted for certification this year. Ino, for some reason, was in turn cursed with three boys and they'd joked about trading teams for everyone's benefit a few times.

Even so, he had to be proud of his girls. They were good at different things, and they were all naturally pretty sneaky, and even though he'd had to teach them how to be tough and how to fight dirty -- they were here, and they were ready. He figured if nothing else, their opponents wouldn't know exactly what to do with three diminutive kunoichi who brawled and gouged and bit even if they did get close enough to try fighting hand to hand.

"Alright, I'm quite done here," Ino said, finishing her announcement with a beckoning motion that pulled her team away from the counter, "and so are you. You've got a long haul coming up and I don't want you all puking the first time you get hit in the gut."

"That doesn't happen, Ino," Chouji said, and she just shook your head.

"Yeah, but you're an Akimichi, so you can't say anything on the subject."

Chouji shrugged but didn't dispute her assessment.

Kiba spared a glance to his team, but they were all finished already and had been for some time, their discarded skewers resting in shallow bowls of lamentably wasted sauce.

"It's time, sensei," Kiyoka said, because she was just as punctual and exact as her uncle Shino, "we shouldn't be late."

"Yeah, seriously. I can't wait to meet this dumb maze and kick its ass."

"Assuming it has one, Nanami."

Kiba metered out a wad of the local currency and handed it to the vendor before turning around on his stool.

"Hey, that's 'Labyrinth' to you runts and I hear nasty things about it. There's a good reason Sunagakure here has the highest second-stage genin fatality rate of any village. So you be careful and count on each other because I am not carrying any corpses home, understand?"

They all nodded. He'd hardly needed to say it, they were a team through and through.

"Alright then, let's go."

It took them nearly twenty minutes to find the rally point. Sunagakure was not built on anything so simple as a grid or anything near it. The rounded buildings were all designed to channel the harsh desert winds through neighborhoods and around walls rather than attempt to stand up to them, and the streets followed winding, unpredictable paths that twisted and forked on a whim.

The rally point itself was an unmarked intersection just barely large enough to accommodate all of the teams that had made it past the first part of the exam. Surrounded on all sides by steep walled buildings, it seemed to be perpetually smothered in shadow, and the atmosphere was dim at best, sinister at worst. Kiyoka shivered, and Haruka pretended not to notice.

In the centre of the crossroads lay the wide maw of a disused well, bordered by crumbling stones and ringed on one side by a small drift of blown up sand forming an impromptu ramp.

After a while, a Suna ninja climbed the drift and took his place on the lip of the well.

"Attention! All participants are present, so we'll begin. Instructors are asked to step back to the walls, and teams are to come forward to the well."

Kiba ended up leaning on the coarse adobe between Ino and Chouji.

"Was that true?" she said, nudging him in the side with a bony elbow.

"Was what true?"

"What you said, about this test being the most dangerous among villages."

He couldn't help but chuckle, as his team lined up -- seventh in order to descend into the well. Haruka was stoic as always, Nanami rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet, and Kiyoka was already discreetly dropping insects from her pant legs which scurried forward and into the masonry of the well mouth.

"Nah. I just wanted to scare some caution into them. I'm afraid they might have learned to be too much like me."

Ino gave him the evil eye.

"Some teacher you are," she said between clenched teeth and elbowed him harder. Chouji stifled a laugh, and it sounded more like a bull snorting.

"The rules are simple. Get into the Labyrinth, and head upstream to the place where it meets the canyon. You'll be provided with a sand worm egg case," and here the examiner held up a bag full of slimy, glowing translucent things, "and they've all been broken open so you can be sure the sand worms will attack you. The first five teams to make it to the finish with two egg cases will pass to the final. It's fifteen kilometers underground. Good luck."

He was sure Ino would make some comment about how nasty the egg cases were, but she didn't say anything as the teams began descending into the well one by one, spaced five minutes apart. Just to be sure, he glanced in her direction.

She was frowning, certainly, narrow eyebrows drawn down to the edges of her eyes. Her thin lips were pulled taut and narrow and she was combing through the end of the long, platinum blonde pony-tail that fell over her shoulder with her fingers. There was something weird about the look on her face and it was decidedly out of place on someone as beautiful as she was.

"Hey," Chouji said, putting one of his massive bear paws on her other shoulder, "they'll be fine. They wouldn't have gotten this far if they weren't going to be."

"I hope you're right," she said, and Chouji's words seemed to have had their desired effect, because her expression had relaxed somewhat.

"I think so. Now, who's hungry?"

Ino just gave Chouji a beseeching look. Kiba grinned.

Sure, they'd be fine. Kiyoka's bugs wouldn't let them get lost, Nanami would keep them hidden with genjutsu, and Haruka could cover with the fire she was so good at. Not to mention that he'd been training them pretty hard for the last month or so, pushing them all to their limits.

He'd even called in favors from his former team mates -- Shino had done a lot of work with his niece, and Hinata had been very helpful bringing Nanami up to speed in her specialty. He had no doubts that Naruto drove Haruka to exhaustion on the weekends, and he knew what she could do with fire because he'd been the one to teach her that.

They'd be just fine.

OoOoOoO

Konohagakure was home to one of the greater and more ostentatious monuments in the ninja world. It was atypical in that no other village had created anything nearing the scale and grandeur of the faces carved into the rock to commemorate its leaders.

Some called it arrogant, assuming as it did the village would remain where it was forever. Some called it over-proud, self-congratulatory navel-gazing at its worst. Some found it wasteful, a flaunting of Konoha's wealth and prosperity. Some thought it sick evidence of a sort of persistent cult of personality. The citizens of the village, naturally, could not have cared less what others thought.

In more ways than one, Konoha was lucky. They were wealthy, the crops grew well, and they'd not had a _bad _Hokage yet. Somehow, some way, they hadn't fallen into the trap of greed, or of power, or of bloodlust like so many others leaders throughout history.

At that moment, the faces were cast in a noble, orange light, aglow with the fires of the summer sunset. The rock caught the light, reflecting in a softer hue that made them seem to come alive once more. And though they wore grim, determined expressions, the light freed them from the base stone and transformed them into the people they'd once been in a silent metamorphosis of sorts.

Or at least Sakura thought, secretly. History might not agree, but she knew two of those faces, had met them in person, and knew that they deserved every foot of space they occupied on that precipice. Even more fortunately, one of them was still alive, and it was her office on whose door she was knocking.

"It's me," she said.

"Come in," said the tired voice of the Hokage.

It was a ritual they'd been through a thousand times or more. Sakura let the door open just enough to slip her body through, and closed it tight behind her, and Lady Tsunade put down the report she'd been reading.

"How was it?" she asked, and Sakura crossed the wide room until she could lean on the corner of the desk.

"Fine. The daimyo's prince is safely back at home. We weren't hassled at all."

Protocol probably forbade even a jounin from leaning over the Hokage's desk and rifling through her papers for something to read, but protocol probably also forbade the Hokage from assigning her paperwork to her students. As a result Sakura was more familiar with the endless torrent of paper that crossed that desk than most people ever would be.

"Sending Naruto back to Kusagakure again?"

Tsunade sighed, and snatched the assignments roster back from her erstwhile student.

"Yes, again. They're getting pissy for some reason and he's getting good at ironing these things out. Besides, he could use the practice."

She tossed it haphazardly onto another pile, and Sakura never ceased to wonder how exactly her mentor knew where anything was at any given time. Her desk was a perpetual mess, and if not for Shizune, herself, and the handful of clerks who came by to pass things along, half of that clutter would have found its way to the floor and stayed there.

Tsunade -- Princess Tsunade officially -- let her elbows drop to the table and leaned on her hands. For a long moment she stared into vacant space, before turning her pale eyes to Sakura and raised an eyebrow.

"Yes, shishou?"

"Sit down, Sakura," she said, and then interrupted her while she was pulling out one of the seats facing the desk. "Not there. Here."

She patted a narrow space on the desk by her elbow, the only free space on the desk.

"Not if you think I'll be able to wedge my ass in there," Sakura said, and Tsunade let out a snort, but cleared a few more loose papers to the side to join their haphazard cousins.

"Your ass is smaller than mine ever was, so sit down already."

Sakura did as she was told, resting most of her weight on her thighs and hands, leaning forward with her legs tucked under her impromptu seat. Shizune always said it made her look like a little girl when she sat that way, but it was an old habit and hard to break. Plus, so long as her hair was as pink as it was, trying to look her age was a counterproductive exercise.

"I'm getting old, Sakura," Tsunade said, and held up a finger to shush her. "Don't say it. You know as well as I do this little illusion I keep up for my vanity is getting harder to hold with every passing year. Do you know how old I really am?"

Sakura shook her head. Tsunade had never, in the nearly twenty years she'd known the older woman, divulged her true age. Sakura assumed maybe fifty, if her mentor was as old as she was now when they'd met.

"I'll be eighty in a few years," Tsunade said, and patted Sakura's knee when she looked shocked. "I have a good back, and the training pays off, but I'm at least as old as my teacher was when he died."

"The Third?"

"The Third. And he was supposed to have been retired, if not for Kyuubi."

"You're still strong," Sakura said, placing her own hand over her mentor's. With the illusion in place, Tsunade's hand was smoother than hers, without the calluses and scarring that came from years of constant fighting.

"No," Tsunade said, and tapped the crystal set into her forehead. "I'm fading. Slowly, but I am. I've got enough chakra stored up here for one big battle. Just one, in case we do get attacked while I still wear that hat. But if that does happen, I'll be finished win or lose. Day to day, you couldn't ask me to teach you to break stones any more."

Tsunade lifted herself out of her seat just enough to shift it so it faced the window, and for the first time Sakura noticed that it did seem to pain her. Maybe Tsunade wasn't bothering to cover her weakness in this moment.

"Look out there," she said, waving her arm across the vista, across the village hidden among the trees in the shadow of the Hokage monument. "Look at all those people, all those good, hard-working people. I'm glad I came back."

Tsunade's eyes were wistful, and Sakura grinned.

"I'm glad you came back. I wouldn't be where I am today without you."

"That's nice to hear, Sakura. Still, I do wonder if I was the best choice for this job. There were so many others they could have picked, you know."

"I think so."

"But you would say that. It would have been less hassle, they wouldn't have had to send the old perv and Naruto out to find me."

She pointed to the monument, to the western-most face, brilliant in the light of the sun.

"They all had a vision, you know. My grandfather forged the village. Built it, assembled the clans, got us started. He could see a city in this valley. The second, he made it strong, made us warriors, led us to a respected place."

Her finger shifted again, pointing out the third in that frozen procession.

"Sensei -- he made us wise. Taught us respect and compassion, though I can't say all the clans have quite learned that yet."

Sakura made a sad, half-smile. She knew about that all too well.

"I wasn't here when the Fourth was in charge, but I know what he did. He showed us we could deal with anything, that we were indestructible, and that the way we do things is the right way to do things."

Her finger shifted again, to the likeness of a young woman with long hair and a diamond in the centre of her forehead.

"Her, I don't know what she ever did for this village. Kept the academy running, I guess."

"She showed us peace, shishou," Sakura said, squeezing Tsunade's hand. "Showed us it was worth fighting for, worth risking everything for. I'd risk it all again for us to have the peace and the allies we have now. Not to mention all the active medics she got trained."

"Well, she didn't have that in mind at the time. I'll take keeping the peace, though. It's a start. At least my successor has a goal worthy of those others...even if he doesn't necessarily know it himself."

"It was always going to be him, wasn't it?" It was no small secret among Tsunade's inner circle that Naruto was going to succeed her if at all possible.

"When he's ready. Sakura, I worry. He's not ready yet. He's not quite there. He's so close, but I can't name him and retire until he is. Sakura, I need to ask you a favor."

Sakura was about to reply that she'd do anything, but old habits died hard and she'd learned long ago that Tsunade's favors often involved work she didn't want to do herself. Even so, the look in the Hokage's eyes was honest and as sincere as she'd seen them.

"What is it?"

"If I don't think I can make it to the end -- before Naruto's ready -- would you fill in for me?"

Sakura wasn't sure if she'd heard right.

"You mean, pretend to be you?"

"No, I mean, take up the mantle. Even if it's just long enough to hold it down until Naruto's where he needs to be."

She shook her head, violently, her hair tossing.

"I can't! I'm not a leader, shishou. I can't inspire these people like you can."

"I know you don't want to." Tsunade smiled, and Sakura felt some confidence returning. "But it wouldn't be forever, and you and Shizune already do most of this job for me, and you know how shy she really is. You've got spirit, at least."

"I..."

"Before you say anything, Shikamaru is doing more for us where he is now than he would be here. Besides, he couldn't even pretend to look like he wanted to do the job even if he actually tried -- and he's more about finesse than power anyway. Think about it, please?"

"No. Naruto will be ready, I know it. You of all people should know better than to bet against him. I mean, you haven't even told me why he isn't ready."

Tsunade's eyes hardened, and then the frustration forming in them gave in to resignation.

"If...if I have to ask you for that favor again, I'll tell you then. I promise."

Disappointed but satisfied nevertheless, Sakura held out the smallest finger on her left hand.

"Then I'll do you that favor if you promise. I promise."

Tsunade hooked the smallest finger of her free hand around Sakura's, and they let it rest at that. It was juvenile and childish, but a time-worn and honorable tradition, and they both knew it was a promise kept. Sakura looked back out at the darkening village, and the thin streams of light coming to life as lamps were lit and candles kindled. Power flickered through the city, a nervous impulse through a sleeping brain, and she heard a faint music through the glass.

"I've decided what I'll do when I retire," Tsunade said, smiling faintly.

"Yeah?"

"Mm. If we don't get attacked and I don't go out in a blaze of glory like Jiraiya, I'll let my successor take over and then I'll disappear."

"That doesn't sound like you, shishou."

"Disappearing is what I do best, Sakura. I did it all my life. I'll just let this vain facade slip away and let my tits fall down to where they're supposed to be at this age," she said, and Sakura laughed despite herself. "And then I'll rent a room in a town somewhere and hawk beauty creams and anti-aging medicine to all the girls, and gamble away what I earn."

"They'll still know it was you," Sakura said, uneasy with the direction this conversation was going.

"Hardly!" Tsunade cackled quietly to herself. "I'll be some old quack of a crone. Better to have some fun and die unknown than to leave the ugliest corpse a Hokage has ever left. I'm vain, Sakura, and I know it. I'd prefer them to remember me as I am now...and why not be the Sannin that discovered immortality and left to wander the world? We've already got one killed in glorious battle and another who didn't quite figure out how to live forever."

Tsunade's laugh was maybe a little mirthless, but Sakura decided not to press the issue. She decided to let an old woman have that one, small dream left after she'd lost a brother, a lover, and her teammates to the world that treated even good people so cruelly.

"Fine," she said, and turned up her nose because pretending to be huffy would probably give the old woman more satisfaction. Even though it wasn't really her business, part of her really wanted to see what Tsunade looked like, under the skin of that twenty-something she wore like a mask. Would she really be that wrinkled, with liver spots and sagging cheeks?

"You'll come and visit me, I hope," Tsunade said. "You and Shizune...you're like the daughters I never had."

Sakura nodded, still staring off into the distance. Then, she turned and wrapped her arms around the woman who really had become her surrogate mother.

"Of course," she said. "You don't need my promise for that."

"All right then. It's late, go home. You have a real family waiting for you."

"Only if you you actually sleep in a bed tonight instead of just passing out on your desk again," Sakura said as she hopped off the desk and began to gather the fallen papers.

"I don't think it's right for anyone to be telling their teacher what to do," Tsunade said, and crossed her arms. Sakura stuck out her tongue.

OoOoOoO

Neji was furious.

He wasn't given to irrational rages; control was the spine of his very existence, the core of his dignity and strength, and at the moment it was being tested to its very limit. As such, the image of Neji's tall form storming through the halls of the Hyuuga compound was frightening in its intensity, formal robes flaring with each step in time with his own mane of chestnut hair, eyes hardened into silver flints.

And still, with his every measured stride and the hard feeling between his teeth he kept himself a perfect two feet behind and to the right of his cousin, Hyuuga Hinata.

For her part, Hinata wore a beatific expression of peace, small lips arched into a tiny smile, her face calm and unruffled as she walked ahead of Neji out of the main hall and onto the pathway of paving stones. This walkway would lead them out through the main gardens, across the pond and back towards the main residence complex, and finally to the private gardens and the building that housed her part of the clan.

Her eyes, however, betrayed her when she turned aside to let Neji open the garden gates for her, and though she kept them level and even, they glistened ever so slightly in the dim light of the lanterns hanging from the lintel.

They proceeded in utter silence, passing a few lesser members of the clan who made way as discreetly and quickly as possible, motivated in part by courtesy and custom, and mostly by the anger burning in Neji's eyes.

Hinata's face did not break until they were safely behind the closed doors of the main house residence, sealed within an anteroom to Hinata's personal chambers. The instant Neji slid the panel shut with perhaps an iota more force than necessary, she sank to her knees with more grace than the restrictive kimono should have allowed her to, and buried her face in her hands.

Neji said nothing, but sat across the table from her, his legs folded under him.

Hinata did not cry despite her obvious distress, and Neji was proud of her, beneath his own, roiling hatred for the judgement that had been handed down just minutes ago. Her breathing was unsteady behind her hands for some time, and it was not until her third try to calm herself that she finally placed them in her lap.

And Hinata too, who had not said an uncouth word or let her practiced veil of etiquette drop in well over an hour, was furious.

"Enough that he is dying," she said, and her normally high, clear voice was clouded with the hereditary disdain she only used when she had exceptional cause, "but that they should _presume_ to make such decisions before my father has actually passed. Gods, Neji, how did I do?"

A deep breath, and he was just a little closer to re-centering himself.

"As well as could be expected, under the circumstances. The elders no doubt do not appreciate the position you've put them in now. That much, at least, was well done."

She looked a little relieved, and looked away to wipe at her eyes.

"Thank you, Neji."

"Mm," he grunted, and a soft knock outside the door made them both jerk back to attention. "Who is it?"

Another small voice, like Hinata's, only a little deeper and huskier replied.

"It's just me, cousin," it said, and Neji's hand moved to admit the speaker access.

Hyuuga Hanabi slipped into the room, mindful of the secrecy and simmering emotion in the room, and discreetly closed the screen behind her before sitting next to Hinata. Hanabi's sister promptly threw her arms around her shoulders and held her tight.

"Not good news, I take it," she said, and wrapped her fingers around Hinata's arm since her own were restrained close to her body by her older sister's hug. "What did they have to say?"

"Very much," Neji said, his voice bitter. "They have placed us in an untenable situation, but Hinata did buy us some time."

Despite Hinata's perfect poise and the clear heritage declared by her eyes, it was her sister that was a better example of the Hyuuga bloodline. For a long time, she had been shorter than her elder sister, but it had only been a matter of time. Now, at twenty-six, Hanabi was a head taller, a slender willow of a girl in contrast to Hinata's shorter, more womanly form. Hanabi's features were sharper, more like her cousin's than her sister's, the difference between pretty and cute. They shared the same hair, though, and, beneath whatever exteriors they put on, the same diamond-hard resolve.

"Oh, Hanabi," Hinata said, finally releasing her, "they threatened to seal you."

For a moment Hanabi's mouth worked in silence, before she found her voice again.

"What? It's not nearly time for that -- you're not married yet, let alone with children of your own. I mean..."

And despite the fact that they were sisters, Hanabi was the second-born and therefore always destined to eventually receive the hated curse seal that Neji hid beneath his hitaiate, or whatever other means he had at his disposal. Neji hated, too, that Hanabi had long since resigned herself to receiving it. She wasn't caged in the same way he was, but it was coming, and there was precious little he could do about it at the moment.

"That's the problem, Hanabi," Hinata said, "I'm not married yet, and I've produced no heirs and I'm already thirty. The elders think I'm not taking this..." She struggled to find the right word.

"...duty," Neji supplied, and he knew from the sour taste in his mouth that that was the reason Hinata had not said it.

"They don't think I'm taking it seriously enough, especially with father as ill as he is. They want me to take a husband within the clan or else they would seal you to force the issue one way or the other."

Hinata gave her sister a sympathetic look, and Hanabi looked down. In addition to destroying the byakugan upon death and allowing main house members from inflicting untold agony upon branch house members with a mere thought, the curse seal had a secondary effect unique to the women of the clan: it prevented them from bearing children with the blood-line. In some ways, Neji supposed the effect was 'useful', in that it allowed alliances by marriage to cement the secular power of the clan without giving away its most prized asset.

But that, like every other 'reason' for the curse seal, was disgusting to him and everyone else in the room.

There were four families in the Hyuuga clan, and though only one was considered to lead the clan, the other three family heads who made up the council of elders nevertheless held considerable power. Not enough, apparently, since they were now making a play for supremacy in the clan. By forcing Hinata into marriage, any one of them could set themselves up to lead as early as the next generation, even though their blood-lines were not as strong.

If the elders did decide to go ahead with sealing Hanabi, it threatened the core blood-line -- unless Hinata had children right away. It was an odious threat, and one they knew could be carried out because despite her fiercer nature, Hanabi was still a creature of the clan.

And she demonstrated it fairly conclusively in a sentence.

"You know I'd take the mark now if it could get you out of this mess, Hinata," she said. "Who cares? You shouldn't be forced into something like this, not when you'll be leading us one day."

"That is not the point," Neji said, trying to keep his voice even. "No one should be cursed in such a way that their own family could hurt them so easily and thoughtlessly."

"Yeah, but Hinata wouldn't," Hanabi said, and though Hinata gave a small nod, she corrected her sister.

"I wouldn't even though the other families might, but like Neji said, that's not the point. Hanabi, I want to end this business with the seals, and Neji agrees. Not all of it, perhaps -- I agree our blood-line is valuable and needs to be protected, but there's no need for it to be hurtful. I won't let them do this to you."

"And my duty to the clan means I'm to protect you at all costs," Neji said, and the irony struck him as amusing. "I'm only doing my...duty."

Hanabi looked to her sister, and hugged her again, and then reached out to take Neji's hand in a gesture of solemn solidarity.

"Thanks," she said. "But please don't get married for me, Hinata."

"I won't," Hinata said, and she finally smiled.

"She bought some time," Neji said when Hanabi leaned forward to prompt an explanation. "She convinced the elders that we were waning in prominence and political power in the village if not elsewhere, and that she was convinced she could take the hand of the next Hokage, assuming it is a man."

"You _what_?"

"I did," Hinata said, with incredible conviction. "And I will. Lady Tsunade has hinted that she'll name a successor soon, if only in private. The elders didn't know any of this since they are as much ninjas as the man who runs Ichiraku Ramen."

Hanabi laughed at that, and Neji coughed as a small chuckle finally escaped him.

"But," she said, "what if it's someone you don't like?"

Hinata sighed wistfully, and Neji wished he had her confidence in that matter.

"I don't think that will be a problem."

"Assuming," Neji added, "that things turn out the way you want them to. They gave you a year because they are sure it won't happen your way in that time, and they might be right."

He didn't stay much longer than that. He did promise Hanabi he would come by and help her with technique on another day, and both his cousins bid him a fond farewell before returning to the more immediate problem of Hyuuga Hiashi's illness. In the meantime, however, Neji was due to return home, and as he passed through one of the small, unobtrusive gateways used by branch house members back onto the street, he mused at how strange it was that the grand complex behind him no longer fit that description.

He was still angry, deep down, but the initial rush had succumbed to his will and the reassuring thought that there was, at least, some kind of plan.

He was nearly there.

Home was now a modest one-bedroom apartment within easy distance of both the Hyuuga compound and the enormous tower that served as the village's headquarters. Close enough to the center of town to be in a pleasant neighborhood, near enough to his work and that of his wife, and close to those relatives he liked, even if they lived with the ones he despised.

The lights were on, however, which meant she was home, finally, from her mission, and his heart rose with his body as he decided to forgo the hassle of climbing the stairs in favor of simply jumping to the balcony and knocking on the window.

The last vestiges of his anger evaporated as she undid the lock and slid the glass aside, chewing on the ends of her chopsticks as the smell of leftovers wafted out to him.

"Hi, Neji," Sakura said, and stepped back to let him in, and he wrapped himself around her, resting his chin on the crown of her head. He felt her move to take the chopsticks out of her mouth and then her arms were around his neck and her eyelashes tickled against his pulse.

She seemed small and fragile within the folds of his sleeves, but she was deceptive like that, girlish but stronger than anyone gave her credit for, including himself. She proved it by lifting herself clear off her feet by her arms, high enough that she could kiss him easily, and held it long enough she could make it linger and still lean back to look at him with hooded jade eyes.

"Where were you? I was hoping you'd be here when I got back."

The fury rustled and rose, but he pushed it back; he'd save it for those it wanted.

"The elders called for a meeting," he said, and even then he couldn't keep the contempt from their collective title. "It didn't go well."

He didn't want to tell her they had used her as a reason for demanding Hinata marry within the clan, implying that his wife and therefore outsiders were barren because she'd not had any children yet either. It hadn't been his place to lash out and tell them he did not plan on having any children if it meant they would be marked, either, so he hadn't. And that, really, had been the greatest source of his outrage.

"You'll get yours, one day," she said. "I know you will. And then all those stuffy old assholes will moan about the younger generation while they can't do shit."

Neji laughed. And she was confident, too, and an optimist, even when all he could do was hope. Even so, there was a hint of something in her eyes, something she, too, was loathe to share. She disentangled herself and grabbed the container of reheated leftovers from the kitchen counter, then motioned for him to sit down.

"How's your uncle?"

"Not improved. There is little to be done now," Neji said, as she climbed over the back of the couch and arranged herself beneath his arm and leaning up against his chest. "All there is for me to do is to make sure Hinata is left unhindered in the succession."

She wasn't particularly fond of the way his family operated, and neither was he, but even so she was so very empathetic, the way she nuzzled into him and murmured condolences. But even that aside, he thought, as he brushed fingers through her hair, there was a separate concern in her eyes.

"And what, dearest, is bothering you?"

"Oh," she said, and picked at her food. "It's shishou. She's...I worry about her. She doesn't show anyone but me and I guess Shizune, but she's getting old. I just...I know she doesn't take care of herself as well as she should."

He let her talk, venting her fears and occasionally she would pass him the bowl and the chopsticks. It was a far cry from the stiff, tradition-bound halls of the compound he'd been raised in, but it was a better sanctuary than any he'd ever had.

OoOoOoO

Sunagakure was a dark city at night.

In the darkness, only those few lamps scattered about at street level and a scattering of flickering windows here and there -- windows so scarce because of the blasted winds that harangued the village in the windy season. Above what little light there was rose the pitch black silhouettes of the city's massive domes, blotting out the stars along the horizon.

What stars there were, though. With no light from the ground to interfere with their pallid light, they came in droves, endless waves of scintillating gems on an onyx sea. Here, and later there, a fleeting spark heralded the flaming passage of a falling meteor, and the dim slice of moon smiled in approval.

And despite it all, Ino could not shake the discomfort and malaise that had harangued her since her arrival. Even at night, the city smelled of sand and solder, of a dry decay that stung her senses and made her wonder if she'd done the right thing, bringing her team here.

It wasn't that she doubted her team, or their ability to make good on her confidence in them. Her boys were ready, she knew they were ready, she'd had them for just over twelve months and they were skilled fighters with even a few tough missions under their belts. She couldn't help but worry a little, but she knew them well enough to know they'd get themselves out alive at the very least. Even if they were somewhere hundreds of feet under that great mesa dominating the southern part of the skyline.

No, this was something else, she thought to herself, and she kicked at the banister of the inn's balcony to work out some of her frustration. It was cold, and she had her arms folded tight against her chest, and she shivered. No, this fear was something irrational and unkempt, but it nagged at her all the same.

It would have been ideal to have Chouji around, so she could vent and bitch and whine, and he could tell her she was being silly, and that things were going to be okay. He was good at that, but he'd decided to take advantage of Sunagakure's hospitality and the alliance to trade earth jutsus with some of the locals and she wasn't about to begrudge him for doing his best to be as good as he could become.

The balcony was not exclusively hers, however, rather an extension of her floor's central lounge, blocked off by a heavy door which had been scarred by years of sandstorms, so she probably shouldn't have been surprised to hear its hinges creak and shift behind her. She jumped a little nevertheless, letting slip her unease.

"Oh, there you are," her visitor said, and she recognized the gruff baritone of Kiba's voice. "I thought I knew that smell."

He looked a little more disheveled than usual, which while not exactly out of the ordinary for him, was at least explained by the bottle he seemed to be carrying. Ino's hackles rose, and she turned to him with a sneer and her best admonishing voice.

"Kiba, are you drunk?"

"Me?" Kiba snickered. "Noooo, I'm not drunk. I might be a little on the sober side of buzzed, but I'm not drunk. Yet."

"Come here," she said, in a tone that would brook no argument, and when he did finally obey her after rolling his eyes, she sniffed at his breath and waggled a finger in front of his face. It was hard to see in the dark, but he seemed to meet most of the physiological criteria for sobriety and his breath wasn't that bad. Yet.

"Come on," he said in futile protest when he noticed she hadn't started to believe him quite yet. "If I really was drunk I'd have never found you hiding out here. Messes with my sense of smell."

"Fine. You might just be buzzed..."

"Sober side of buzzed," he said, but she ignored him.

"...but you probably shouldn't be. What are you drinking anyway?"

Kiba hefted the bottle, and spun it to so the label faced her.

"Local fare," he said proudly. "I picked it up in the market earlier, I think it's made from cactus or something? It's not bad, but it's a bit strong."

"And of course you are drinking it straight from the bottle."

He shrugged, and let his weight lean against the wall in a heavy slump. He didn't do anything gracefully, it seemed, but then he'd always been that way.

"Didn't have a glass," he said, and grinned, his oversized canines flashing in the moonlight. "Oh, loosen up. You're more fun than this."

"You're not drinking alone, I hope. Because that's pathological, you know."

"Drinking alone? I'm not that pathetic, why do you think I was looking for you?" He did his best to look offended but it came off more like amusement and Ino gave up.

"Maybe that's the wrong question. Why are you drinking?" she said, and he shrugged.

"Because it seemed like a good idea at the time?" One of Ino's eyebrows slowly raised as she crossed her arms again, and Kiba seemed to shrink a little, finally cowed. "Alright. I was just thinking, I don't think my girls are going to make the finals. There's some pretty stiff competition this year, just from looking at the teams down in there with them...and there isn't anything I can do to help them."

"Well...I understand that," Ino said, mollified by the honesty, and she took a step closer and leaned into the wall beside him.

"It's like...I'm just hoping I taught them well enough. I know we're not supposed to get attached or anything because yeah this is dangerous work. But two of my girls are family of friends, and where I come from that might as well be the same thing as family. Not that I care any less about Nanami."

"You remember what Chouji said? He said they'd be alright, yours and mine, and he's got a talent for that sort of thing. He's never been wrong about people, ever, and I have faith in him. And I have faith in my team."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," she said, and let her back slide down the wall until she was sitting on the cold floor. "Sure, they didn't know shit about being stealthy and they had absolutely no imagination when we first got started, but I think they've got the hang of it now. Typical boys, all balls and no brains."

There was Daijiro, the Katsukawa boy, who'd been all offense and alpha strike before she'd essentially humiliated him in the first lesson; Nakajima Takeshi, who was excellent with ninjutsu and picking up medic skills quickly but hated getting too close to an enemy; and Takahashi Hideo, who was, it turned out, learning to be exceptionally devious with genjutsu and still fast and tough enough to help out Daijiro at close range.

"Well, I know I've got the first thing on that list," Kiba said, and sank down beside her before taking another sip from the bottle. "Ah, I guess I'll see them tomorrow morning, then. You ever wonder if our teachers had any doubts about us?"

"Probably," Ino said. "What a bunch of brats we were, gods."

"Sometimes I feel bad about all the bullshit I put Hinata and Shino through, you know. And Kurenai-sensei too, poor woman. Want some?"

He tilted the bottle in her direction. Well, it wasn't like there was anything she needed to be doing at the moment.

"I don't suppose I can let you finish that yourself. Is it good?"

"It's alright. Strong, though."

He was right on the last count. As for the first, it was harsh and sweet in all the wrong ways; it tasted like cold medicine and she could feel it making a home in her stomach, cozy and fuzzy and a lot more comfortable than alcohol had any right to be. She coughed into her hand a few times, then tried again with more success.

"It's actually pretty nasty," she said, waiting to see if there was an aftertaste, but there was none. Kiba laughed and took back the bottle. "How's your dog?"

"He's fine, I'd know if he'd gotten himself into trouble. Probably gorging on lizards or whatever they have around here."

"Are you really that much like him?"

Kiba smiled like she'd given him a compliment. She didn't get it, the bond he had with his dog. His family was weird that way, eating, running, and sleeping near their constant companions, and she couldn't fathom sharing a bed with an animal.

She sighed.

"Kiba, tell me if this is stupid, but I feel like something bad is going to happen. Call it a premonition or whatever, but it doesn't feel right."

"Weren't you telling me just five minutes ago that things were going to be okay?"

"I don't mean with the exams, necessarily. Just that something is going to happen."

She shivered, and he gave her back the bottle. The drink did help to cut the cold a little, even if she knew it was an illusion caused by the dilation of vessels in her skin. Still, it was pleasant and her next drink was a little deeper than she'd intended it to be.

"Well, I'd call that your gut instinct. And if you think something feels like it's about it happen, I'd say act on it. I do all the time and it's gotten me this far, at least."

"Your gut instinct got you half-way to drunk on weird cactus liquor on a hotel balcony in the wrong city?"

Kiba laughed, a deep pleasant laugh, and she chuckled herself.

"Nah. It's kept me alive. I have to do a lot by smell, especially if I'm going fast. Smell is great, but it's not instant, like hearing or sight. Sometimes instinct fills in the gaps, tells you what you haven't got time to think about or even what you haven't noticed yet. I trust it, but I guess I would."

"So what should I do about it, then?" she said, and turned to look at him. He was tall, in a wiry way mitigated by his relaxed mien, and there was a comfortable ease in the mess he kept of his hair and clothing.

"If it really starts bugging you, just look out for it spiking. Be alert, maybe take some extra precautions. If nothing comes of it, no harm done, right?"

"So you're saying I should definitely not be getting drunk tonight."

"I didn't say that, exactly. Sometimes my instinct has told me I should be getting drunk." He laughed, abruptly. "Man, I feel sorry for your team. They are going to be stuck with unfulfilled teacher fantasies for a decade."

Ino shoved him, hard, and again when he wouldn't stop laughing.

"What are you talking about? They're twelve!"

"So? It's like you have no idea how boys work. They're at the exact age when that shit happens. I should know."

"No way," she said, appalled. "You had a crush on Kurenai-sensei?"

"Hell yes I did. Oh, come on, don't look at me like that. Pretty older woman who you spend most of your time with, your hormones are starting to kick in...and she was not hard on the eyes. Ever notice your boys trying to one up each other constantly whenever you're around?"

She had, actually.

"That's just rivalry, Kiba. There's no way they're...oh lords above. You might be right. Great, now you've ruined how I'll see them forever."

She grabbed the bottle back. His breath stank a little more, and between them, there was considerably less in the bottle than there had been when he'd first arrived. Oh, what the hell, she thought. Nothing's going to happen here in the village. Sunagakure had the place locked down tight enough to stop demons, and Chouji had never been wrong about anyone, let alone her team.

"Nah. They're your students, it was bound to happen."

"So you wouldn't mind knowing if your girls have little girly crushes on you?"

Kiba looked stunned, blinked, moved his mouth around a bit, and it was Ino's turn to laugh uncontrollably.

"Oh, great. It hadn't even occurred to me," he said. "For...dammit. Well, I guess I'm at least hot enough for little girls to think I'm cool like that."

"I suppose I'm sort of flattered you think I fall into that category," she said, and they shared another round of the bottle's bittersweet contents between them.

"Damn straight you do," Kiba said, still laughing, and he wasn't on the sober side of buzzed any more. He turned and pointed to her with his hand still wrapped around the neck of the bottle. "You've got these really awesome eyes, and that whole coy tease thing going on with your hair over your face like that."

She wasn't sure at all if the blush she felt creeping up her neck was due to the alcohol, and she was glad for once that it was so dark.

OoOoOoO

Hyuuga Hiashi was not well.

He was pale where he lay in his bed, a sweaty, pallid gray and he wore a perpetual look of pain, even asleep as he was now. Twin bags hung on a steel tree above him, metering out careful doses of his medication down an intravenous line inserted into the emaciated arm turned out and resting above the covers. It wasn't just his arm, either. The stern lines of his face that had marked him as a man of implacable will were gone now, replaced by sunken hollows that filled the gaps between his bones with shadow instead of flesh.

And even though he had not been the best father, even though he represented many of the things she could not abide in her family, even though he was over sixty now and his time was bound to come sooner or later -- even in light of all this, Hinata could not help but feel a sharp pain in her heart upon seeing him in this condition.

She didn't need her byakugan to see the problem any more; it was clear from the shallow, grasping breaths that shook him that he no longer breathed like a healthy man. His left lung had been virtually swallowed by the malignant growth that had taken up residence in his chest, and despite the best efforts of his doctors to remove it, it had stubbornly continued to grow, spreading through his body until it was only a matter of time.

"Good night, father," she said, because he was, after all, still her father.

She rose to leave, but he stirred behind her, coughed hideously, and then found the strength to speak.

"Who is there?"

"Hinata, father," she said, and forgave his failing sight. The room was dark and there was no reasonable way for him to put the gift of his special eyes to good use.

"Aah. I have not seen you in a while."

"You were resting each time I came to visit," she said, re-seating herself. "I apologize; I've been kept busy."

"Considerable responsibility..," -- he paused to cough again -- "falls upon you. I trust our affairs are in good order?"

"I think so." She decided she wouldn't trouble him with the debacle in front of the elders from earlier. He didn't need more trouble than he already had, and it was her conundrum to deal with, and he nodded with as much dignity as possible.

Things had changed, over the years. Neji had grown closer, she'd grown stronger, and Hanabi had served as a sufficient intermediary between the two of them and the man before her. They still talked only rarely and awkwardly when it did occur, but at least she could speak and be heard.

"Your sister...has told me much. She speaks highly of you." It was like Hanabi to exaggerate her accomplishments a little, even if she wasn't as good as her younger sister at many of the Hyuuga's traditional arts. Still, it was a roundabout way for her father to say the same thing without saying it, and she managed a faint smile.

"Her help has been invaluable as well."

"You have your mother's modesty. You are very much as she was," he said, and there was nostalgia buried under the gravel of his voice and the the rasp of his illness. "And yet, you have found your own way."

It was good enough for her.

"Thank you, father."

"She told me...was it today? Hanabi has told me you were asked to present yourself to the elders."

"This is true." Hinata felt a slight chill creep up her spine, both in memory of what had transpired and her dread at having to explain it to him.

"You must never show them weakness, Hinata. We are the de facto leaders of this clan because we produce the most fighters, the strongest ninjas. But they hold much of the money and political power both inside and outside the village. Without them, we are nothing, and without us, they are nothing. I fear they may try to take advantage...of my condition."

He'd said too many words, and his body was wracked with a new fit of agony as he tried to clear what remained of his lungs. It was a warning too late, perhaps, but Hinata knew she'd not shown them the weakness he feared. Of that at least, she was proud.

"I don't believe I have," she said. "They...underestimate us, Hanabi and I. Neji as well."

In the darkness, she could see Hiashi's lips quirk for a fraction of a second, and she knew he was pleased.

"Good, then. Go on. I will rest, and I am certain you should as well."

He closed his eyes and breathed as deeply as he could, then tried to make himself more comfortable. Hinata took it upon herself to rearrange his bedding so it was less rumpled, and she took his feather-weight hand briefly before leaving. He was incredibly fragile, in this state, and she'd never imagined she would ever be in a position to lend this man her strength...but much had changed in all those years.

When she left, she shut the screen as quietly as possible, and bowed to the branch house guard standing by the door. He seemed surprised as they always were when she accorded them the respect she knew they deserved. Let the elders see that as weakness, she thought, because they don't know anything.

They didn't know that nearly every third or fourth night, she retired to her room, and changed from the kimono she wore for tradition's sake into the far more comfortable gear she wore on missions or when she was training. They never saw her slip into her white jacket, into one of many abused pairs of indigo pants. They never saw her trade her slippers for the spare pair of hard-soled, light-weight combat sandals she kept by her door.

And if they would ever dare to send someone to spy on the Hyuuga clan's heiress after she had gone to bed, all they would see was that she was soundly sleeping, curled up and alone, her face turned to the wall, because they didn't know how she escaped every night she could afford to get away and vanished into the darkness and left only an illusion to fill her sheets.

It was a path she knew well, and followed without sound. The private gardens she needed to cross were usually abandoned at this hour, and though she waited to be sure of it, not a soul drifted anywhere near it. Beyond that, the outer wall, but that took no effort since years of practice had taught her to anticipate the sentries' patrols, habits, and personalities. No one who reported to the council of elders had even the slightest notion that she'd been slipping out of the Hyuuga compound alone and unescorted at night for the better part of seven years, because who would suspect meek little Hinata of flaunting even a single rule?

It was her dirty little secret, known only to a handful of people, and anyone who knew she trusted implicitly in any case.

She'd gotten very good with genjutsu over the years, and had learned that the average, unsuspicious mind needed only a slight push to believe something simple, and so any stray eye that might catch her on her unconventional path would believe that they'd seen only a cat making its way across the rooftops.

At least, until that cat slowed on the peak of a small, tiled rooftop in the shadow of a larger apartment building and came to stop beside the man already sitting there. He looked lonely, as he did those nights she found him there, resting his elbows on his knees, staring out over the lights of the city as it roused and cheered in celebration of another day gone by.

"I wish you'd let me take you on a date," Naruto whispered, as the cat's form shifted and melted away to reveal her sitting next to him. She shook her head, long hair floating on the breeze behind her, and he leaned against her and pressed his lips against her temple.

"One day," she whispered back, taking his warm, weathered hand in both of hers. He put his other arm around her shoulders, and she closed her eyes and reveled in the touch. "One day soon."

He started to ask about her father but she shushed him. She'd had enough of thinking about that already.

"I haven't been alone like this in a while," he said. "Haruka's been around a lot, recently, training for her exam."

The thought of the girl he'd adopted brought a smile to her face. She'd promised, when he'd taken charge of her, that she would help him, and that had brought them closer together than she'd ever dared to imagine. Haruka was, in her mind, her daughter as well, and it had been that thought of her little pretend family that had kept her from losing herself in front of the elders.

"I think she'll do well," she said. "We pushed her hard enough, don't you think? She certainly slept better than usual."

Naruto smiled, and she didn't need to open her eyes to know. He smiled with his whole body, the way he relaxed and opened up.

"Yeah, she did. She's a talented girl, for someone with no lineage."

"Well, that we know of," Hinata corrected. "You were pretty talented for a kid with no lineage once. Can I ask you something?"

"Anything."

She looked up, and he was looking back at her, a contented light in those dark blue eyes glinting even through the thin shadows cast by the cloud of streaky, dirty-blond hair drifting around his face.

"I know I said...I know I said we couldn't be official, that no one could know. Because of all those things, like my father, my clan...the fact that they don't like you, that they're too stupid to see past what you are and discover who you are..."

"Yeah?"

"But if I asked you again...would you...would you be with me? Forever? Officially?"

"Yes, Hinata," and contented was no longer a sufficient word for the light in his eyes. Ecstatic was perhaps most appropriate, and she could feel a thrum of energy boil through him. He shifted abruptly around her, holding her with both arms as his forehead touched hers.

By instinct, her arms coiled up under his and small hands gripped the back of his collar, her fists pushing him towards her as she smiled and met with him with her lips. He tasted right, of seaweed and stories over tea, of ice cream in the dark and sublimated sorrows. She kissed him hard, pushing him against the wall of the neighboring apartment building with no intention of ever letting him go.

"What...what changed?" he said when she allowed him to breathe, trying to catch his breath.

"Nothing yet." She shook her head, blushing hard, and burying her face against his neck since she was forced to use her mouth to speak. "I...I got them to admit they would accept the next Hokage as my husband. So please...you have to..."

"Is that all I have to do?"

He spoke with such confidence she couldn't avoid it, letting it crawl over her, infecting her with its strength. How many times had she heard him tell her she was capable, that the way was open to her if she tried no matter what obstacles stood in her path, even if he hadn't been there to say it himself?

"We can do this," she said, and pressed herself against him again, heard his breath hitch and his heart twitch in double-time.

OoOoOoO

Kaze no Kuni was a vast realm, largely dominated by a stony, wind-blasted desert inhospitable to most life. At its northern frontier, it butted up against the Tsuchi mountains, which blocked the life-giving rains from the north and shunted them into the jungled lands surrounding Amekagure, and from there into the forests and plains of Ho no Kuni. The deserts of the north were rocky barrens, flat and blasted by the incessant winds from which its ninja community took its name. To the south, the nation slid down into an ocean whose waters were fertilized with sand blown from afar and teemed with the fish that made sovereignty even possible in the first place.

And to the east were the low, scrubby flatlands where the natives took their herds to graze, and the poor, inconsequential kingdom that divided Kaze no Kuni from Ho no Kuni. It was a buffer state, one whose existence and sovereignty depended on the sufferance of both its neighbors, although its fortunes had improved along with relations between both kingdoms. Not much grew here -- its sole river was shallow and anemic -- but it was making some progress as a trade intermediary between newly allied super-powers.

But the landscape sucked, Nara Shikamaru thought to himself, as he stepped off the bridge in the middle of that blasted land. The bridge itself was in poor repair, too far north and too far away from the major populations that traded between his country and Kaze no Kuni, but it was more or less directly in the way of the shortest path between their ninja villages and therefore the route most frequented by ninja not trying to be sneaky. Crossing this bridge on foot was a sort of ritual, like announcing one's presence by knocking before entering a room.

Having done so, he sighed, and looked back the way he'd come, shading his eyes from the sunrise that was doing its best to blind him.

"Can't take a little sunlight, huh? Some of us have to spend the whole morning staring into it."

Here we go again, he thought, and turned his head only enough to acknowledge the presence of the other person who'd not been there seconds before.

"Temari."

"In the flesh," the princess of Sunagakure said, stepping up behind him and sticking one hand into the high, stiff plume of black hair that jutted from the back of his head, "You're here earlier than I thought you'd be, slowpoke."

He looked over his shoulder to meet her eyes and sank his hands into his pockets.

"You're a pain in the neck, woman. I gathered from your message that it was probably more important than usual."

She stopped mussing with his hair and leant against him hard enough that he had to push back to avoid falling over. She threw an arm around his neck and poked him hard in the opposite shoulder, and he knew she was alone because that kind of fraternization was dangerously frowned upon. Not that it seemed to matter to her; not that it seemed to matter to him, either.

"If I just wanted to do _that_ I'd have come straight to your door. No, I think we have a problem."

"I don't like the sound of that."

"You'll like the looks of it even less. Come on, I have a team waiting."

She moved, and pulled him by the shirt when he wasn't moving fast enough for her pleasure.

"Come _on_," she said again, and her voice was unpleasantly sharp, "this is a goddamned emergency."

That got his blood moving, and though he muttered something about it being a tremendous drag, his curiosity was piqued and he followed her pace for pace as she stormed off into the bushes. If it wasn't grass here, it grew in dense clumps of hard thorns with olive and ochre leaves. Everything stank of alkali and dry rot, but as they moved, another smell made itself increasingly apparent: blood, and lots of it.

This was not going to be a good start to what would have been an otherwise uneventful day.

He followed her up to the river's edge several kilometers upstream, where another Suna ninja stood guard with his arms crossed and a stern look on his face. Shikamaru gave him a nod, which was answered with nod and a serious look, which forced him to remember that right, he was in fact a diplomat and actually respected. Which was pretty funny in and of itself.

"So this," Temari said, stopping short, and the smell of blood was quite strong now as she batted carrion flies away from her face, "is our problem."

It was not a pleasant scene, he thought, waving his own hand around to keep the flies away. Two bodies lay before them, with a third somewhat further off. Another Suna ninja posted forty meters on the other side of the river suggested that there was a fourth body there, as well. And the two that lay here, and most likely the other two as well, wore headbands that marked them as ninjas from Kumogakure, the engraved clouds on glinting in the light of the bright clear sun resting on the horizon.

"Not good," Shikamaru said.

"No shit, not good. There's a whole genin team here and their jounin leader, killed on intermediate ground between our countries in the middle of the damn exam ceasefire and the best you have to say is 'not good'?"

"Well, if you put it that way," he said, and gave her a wry look. She looked exasperated. "You said they'd just gone missing. Okay, let's walk through this. I'll assume you've already taken steps to notify Kumo and let them know we're on it?"

"Unlike you I'm not totally incompetent. Still, it was a six hour hike just to find them out here from our nearest border post -- and when I left all I knew is that there were flashes out in the desert and we assumed there was fighting." She yawned. "Shit, I've been up all night."

So had he, considering he'd gotten her call at around three in the morning.

"Great. So, who died first?"

"The jounin. Judging from his position, I'd say he was struck first, in the back."

Temari knelt next to the corpse and reached out to the hole in the man's back, brushing away the flies' eggs to Shikamaru's and the flies' consternation.

"Ugh," he said, and she gave him a look that told him to suck it up, pussy. "Looks like a sword wound. From the angle it looks like it went clear through his heart. Explains why he didn't bleed as much as he could have. Probably dead before he hit the ground."

"Tactically, it makes sense. Kill the strongest first, then the weak."

"Right. I'm guessing this was the next one," he said, and pointed to the headless corpse of a genin kunoichi. Her head was not too far away, her face hidden by the dirt and the overhanging branches of a thorny bush with small grey fruit.

"Probably," Temari said, and wiped the blood and ichor from her fingers on Shikamaru's pants and stood up. She assumed a fighting stance where she thought the assassin might have stood, and guided a ghost sword through the motions: two-handed thrust, withdraw, recovery to the right, and then a hard, smooth slash, low and to the left. "Yeah, that seems right."

"Okay then. And then, what, the other two genin run. They're outclassed and probably panicking at this point."

"Sure. They flunked out of the first part of the exam, so if they weren't even hard enough to handle that..."

"...getting attacked and seeing their cell leader drop without a word wasn't going to help, no."

Shikamaru glanced over as she nodded, not caring that he'd finished the sentence. They were thinking the same thing anyway.

They moved to the third genin, sprawled on his back, his neck at an impossible angle, dark brown hair scattered in the dirt. He still held a kunai in a death-grip, his fingers coiled taut and white around its handle, held so tightly that his nails had cut into his palm, but apparently to no good effect.

"Look at this," he said, drawing Temari's attention and pointing with his foot. "Really slight bruising on his face here. Probably where the attacker grabbed his head."

"Right there, around the eyes? Yeah, I see it. Weird place to go for a neck break though. There's some on his free hand, too."

"Attacker might have grabbed him by the hand first, turned him around. Something's not right here, though."

"Besides the diplomatic shitstorm you and I are going to have to deal with come tomorrow?"

"No, I mean with the kills. What would you have done?"

Temari blinked, and her eyes turned feral. It was frightening, Shikamaru thought, the way her soft greens morphed into a feline viridian the way they always did before she killed, and they flickered with the malice running through her head. It was hard to look away, too. When she spoke, her voice was low and hard, a threatening whisper.

"Okay, I have a sword, and I can use it. Stab, chop -- easy, they didn't see me coming, now two are running. I'm faster, so I'd..."

Temari stopped, turned toward him, perplexed, and her voice rose with her eyebrows.

"...I'd just run him through or hamstring him to kill later."

"Exactly what I was thinking. Why stop to break his neck?"

"Oh, you're going to love this then," she said, and began walking out across the water, hovering across its surface on her chakra, long legs carrying her effortlessly to the clay bank on the far side. "Check out these burns."

Shikamaru followed her, and bent down for a better look. The clay was scorched in a wispy pattern, as though black, inky feathers had been dragged across it haphazardly. Electrical burns and no surprise there, a lot of Kumo ninja were specialists with lighting jutsu. This one seemed to have been trying to use the water to increase its power or range.

"So the attacker gives the last genin time to pull off one of his better jutsus," Shikamaru said.

"Looks like it, yeah. I mean, I'm not the fastest nin I know, but I could cross this in the time it takes your average genin to punch out five or six seals. And even if he did get it off, I can think of a dozen ways to cross the river and take him out immediately."

Shikamaru turned to look at the rest of the scene, and was glad to have the sun out of his eyes for a while. The last Suna ninja was smoking near the body, and he felt a pang in his chest even though he hadn't had a cigarette in about ten years, but thin wisps of ash were rising from a handful of other scorch marks scattered around. One small bush had burned down to a fragile sculpture of coals, the earth beneath it baked black.

"Who do you think did that? Our attacker or the genin?"

"If I didn't know how rare fire jutsus were in Kumo, I'd have to say the genin. And in this weather anything more powerful could have set fire to a lot more than just that."

"Well, you're more familiar with that than I would be," Shikamaru said. "It wouldn't be too difficult to be precise with small amounts of fire, but it doesn't look any of them hit the genin."

"And yet he's too competent to have messed up the other parts of the attack. Not to mention we haven't found a hint of his movements or location yet."

"More signs of fighting. Shuriken, kunai -- this part of the fight could have been as long as five minutes."

"It's like a cat," Temari said, head snapping toward him with the realization. "You ever watch a cat catch something? When they're bored they just play with the mouse or whatever until it dies. They catch it, let it go, swat it around a bit, let it recover and then catch it again."

"So, a sadist." That wasn't good by any means, but at least the probability of this being an agent of another power was that much smaller -- unless Iwa was agitating again. Most likely a missing nin, or someone with a score to settle. He didn't like it, but at least it was something to get going on. "We should see what we know about this kid's family, see if there are any outstanding vendettas going on. Plus we'll have to see the bingo book about missing-nin with fire jutsus and swords. Or even regular nin...too early to tell what exactly they're trying to pull."

The sun was higher now, two hands-breadths over the horizon. Shikamaru looked up, and the last few stars were winking out of existence next to the pale crescent of a waxing moon. There weren't any clouds.

"It'll be hot today," he said, but Temari wasn't listening. Instead she had a finger pressed to her left ear, and a growing look of horror on her face.

"Shit," she said, turning to face him, "that was the patrol. They found two more teams, one from Otogakure and...one of yours."

"Ugh. Better start asking around for a messenger summon, we're not going to find a phone this far out."

"Aren't you the master of the obvious today," she said, her voice no longer scathing. She let one end of her fan drop into the dirt, throwing up a handful of dust that scattered on the wind. "The other part of the problem is containment. I brought out two teams to find them, including my own, and with all the security in the village proper, we don't have nearly enough coverage to go looking for this guy properly and still keep a watch on everyone coming through here, ceasefire or no."

"Then we'll do it," Shikamaru said, voice listless. "This is our common ground."

"I know that tone."

"Yeah, yeah." He waved his hand, dismissing her. He didn't want to do it, but it looked like the world was dumping more responsibility in his lap again. "I get it enough from everyone else without you having to tell me. If we can get a summons out now, I can have a couple of our strongest here in -- maybe twelve, thirteen hours, if they really move it and carry pills."

"So long as they hurry. It's been over a day since phase two of the exams started, and teams will start heading back in this direction soon, if they haven't already left. What'll you do?"

"Wait. Whoever this was has had a four hour head start on us. He won't cross the border on your side, I don't think. You've got massive coverage to make sure your visitors don't try anything, so it's our border that's going to be most porous. Still, if he's predating on the teams that flunk out, he'll be waiting for them here, between our strongest forces. If I meet my people on my side we can sweep down through this godforsaken valley."

"You mean you're going to find a place to crash until they get here," she said, and her eyes told him she wasn't going to believe any other justification. She wasn't wrong, necessarily.

"That too. But there's still something bothering me about this, I just don't know what it is yet."

Temari drummed her fingers on the end of her fan for a moment.

"Alright then. Let's see if we can find anything else at the other two kill sites, and then I'll go with you. My teams can send word back to my village and we can advise anyone else who leaves to be careful and take an alternate route."

He could only agree. It was going to be a long day.


	3. 2: Friends

Examination: Friends

Unlike its counterpart in Sunagakure, the Konoha market was a somewhat more dignified, organized affair. While the stalls at the bazaar made up for their impermanence with bright colors and glittering fabric, the merchants here had on display hardy, hand-carved signs and tall banners that fluttered gaily in the breeze.

It wasn't the typical sort of place one might find Neji on his own time, but he and Sakura had been separated too much of late and he was more than willing to make up for lost time.

Her hair caught the sun as she quibbled cheerfully with a merchant over produce, and he faintly remembered a time in which he wouldn't have deigned to notice such supposedly minor and inconsequential details. He'd been a different person then, committed to his craft and an inexcusable personal philosophy he was glad to be rid of. Granted, it had been his way of making sense of what he perceived to be the way of the world and he'd been ignorant of the truth, but he was no less ashamed.

Watching her tuck a loose strand behind an ear as she collected her change, he couldn't contemplate the person he might have become if he'd not changed and quite frankly had no desire to know.

Nowadays, he was no less committed to becoming better at what he did, but he had different reasons now. Case in point: Sakura turned to look at him out of one eye, and the satisfied smirk on her lips brought one to his own. If there was anything he could do to bend his talents to her needs, he would do it.

She'd once told him, what seemed like an eternity ago, that he was not exactly who she'd thought he was. She'd never specified exactly what she'd meant by that, but he was certain he knew. It had rather driven home the point that he'd been clinging to the edge of a bitter, petty insanity and that the perception of his malaise had not entirely dissipated even after its passing.

After all, before they'd really come to know one another, the last time he'd seen much of Sakura had been during the calamitous events of their own examinations, and certainly first impressions were often the deepest.

While he was distracted, she grabbed for his hand and without warning thrust them both out into the thoroughfare, pulling him through the throng in her wake. He'd learned some time ago asking her to slow down was futile because she was childish and headstrong and did things at her own pace. Damned if whatever she was doing was undignified or contentious, she would do it and drag him along with her if she wanted to.

But if she was stubborn and juvenile and even vulgar if her ire was up, she was in equal measure kind, gentle, and intelligent. If her emotions swung wildly and if she was wildly unpredictable, so be it, because she was honest in the extreme and defended anyone she cared about with an admirable sort of fanaticism. He'd found he was more than willing to deal with her lesser aspects in exchange for everything else.

And, he thought, as she navigated them free from the crowd and into the shade of a cluster of planted maples, she was beautiful. Light sifted through the leaves and dappled over skin that glowed healthily, and mischief glittered in those green eyes as she looked to him and raised an eyebrow. He looked like the specter of death by comparison, long and pale.

"Well?" she said, as she brushed samaras clear of the stone bench with both hands and sat down, crossing her legs. "You've been staring off into space all morning, and don't think I didn't notice."

"I was thinking," he said, following suit to find the bench agreeably cool in the rising heat, "how grateful I am that I found a life of my own before someone in the clan arranged a marriage for me."

The look she gave him implied that he was perhaps crazy, and she leaned away, folding her arms.

"Because of course I had nothing to do with that."

"Of course you had everything to do with that," he said, and gently pulled her towards him by the elbow. "And the alternative isn't pleasant."

The image came to him, unbidden. A woman from within the clan, or without -- it didn't matter, she was faceless in his imagination anyway -- bound to him probably for reasons external to the marriage itself. Someone resilient, obedient, someone with good breeding and respect for tradition. Someone who would make no waves because she'd been told something was more important than she was.

He winced inwardly.

"At least you'd get to spend more time with this hypothetical woman," she said, and she put away her pretense of offense and leaned against his shoulder. He put an arm around her waist, and she had a point. She'd been out all week on her mission, and though this was only the second day since their reunion it wouldn't be long before they were separated again.

"You assume I would want to. I see it far more likely I'd keep myself busy instead."

"She wouldn't fight with you nearly as much as I would. Or 'drag you around like a dog' as I think you put it once."

"Exactly," he said, and she head butted him, hair flying around her face. "You're a challenge."

Her eyes lit up, in the way that presaged she was about to do something ridiculous, uncouth, and completely uncalled for. There was caprice there, in spades.

"I'll give you a challenge, if that's what you want."

Sakura turned on the bench, trapping his hand against her waist with her elbow and pinning it with a surge of strength that made his fingers tingle. She pivoted on one knee and swung her other leg across his lap, holding him captive against the back of the stone bench.

"Just think about everyone around us," she said with a canary-eating smile, so quietly he had to resist the temptation to lean his head in to hear her better. He could feel his blood rising at the base of his neck, and elsewhere.

Still, he had his pride, and he could push back just as well.

"I do believe they would wonder what exactly you were trying to accomplish."

It was hard to keep himself stone-faced, much less even-voiced when she dipped two fingers into his collar and let her fingernails drag along his chest, but he'd been practicing his entire life. He was, at least, thankful he was wearing a t-shirt -- or else she'd have been half way to his navel in her effort to push at his boundaries.

"Hmph. I think they'd probably wonder why it was Hyuuga's wife was so desperate."

"...no doubt coming to the conclusion that she was crazed."

Her nose brushed his, and he inhaled on her exhale, and waited.

"Oh, you're no fun," she said, and was surprised when he stole a small, chaste kiss from her as she pulled back. "Damn you."

"What good is a man who doesn't appreciate his woman?"

Her position, sitting back astride his knees, was still somewhat compromising, but she could make anything look innocent. She did, too, because he held her gaze until she laughed for no apparent reason at all and threw her arms around his neck. She was still baffling, he thought, and kissed her again, properly this time.

"I did miss you while I was out," she said, and he nodded into her hair.

"You made that abundantly clear last night. I nearly forgot to tell you: Haruka came to visit while you were away."

"She did?"

"I presume before she left for the examination in Sunagakure. Most likely she was hoping for your support."

Sakura shifted in his lap, turning so that she sat across his legs and unfolded her legs across the rest of the bench, winding them around the two bags of groceries next to them.

"Well, she has it, in any case. I hope you wished her luck, too. At least we know her team didn't flunk out after the first round."

"What makes you say that?"

"If they had, they'd be home by now. Actually, I suppose that means all of our teams have made it to the second round this year. Isn't that strange?"

"More so considering I don't believe Itoh's team is quite ready yet."

"That's unkind. How do you know?"

He shook his head. Itoh's team had been bait for one of his assignments recently, and though it had been successful, he had his reservations.

"I don't mean to say they're unskilled. They look to him too much for support without considering that he will not always be present to guide them. They're too dependent."

"Hm. Well, maybe they figured it out at the last. So what did you do with her? I hope you didn't just send the poor girl on her way."

"Certainly not. She, at least, appreciates decorum, a trait whose development I can only credit to my cousin, and not the other two responsible for her upbringing. We had tea, played chess, and I offered her some advice."

Sakura wrinkled her nose at the implication.

"She's a quiet girl on her own without Hinata's help. How'd it go?"

"She was upset that I cheated," he said, and smirked. Sakura punched him.

"You're a cruel, cruel man."

"I have to be. She took the lesson well, however. I told her anything was fair game, and that she should have cheated as well if she thought she could get away with it. Also that an opponent should never be considered defeated, especially if you are sure that they are."

"If I remember correctly it was Naruto who taught you that one."

"For that I thank him. I think," he said, and Sakura rubbed her knuckles against his jaw in a gentle mockery of an uppercut. She tried it again but he intercepted her hand and kissed it.

"Well, she likes you enough that she'll forgive you. I think. I hope they made it through to the finals, then. Kiba's got a solid team with her and the other two girls."

Someone cleared their throat tactfully behind them, and Neji glanced aside to see a man in an unseasonably heavy coat and sunglasses standing there.

"I am sure my niece would thank you if she were here," Aburame Shino said, his voice somewhat muffled behind the cowl that covered the lower half of his face. "Unfortunately, Neji, we have work to do. I apologize, Sakura."

"Wait, what?" Sakura stood to free him, but she looked about as confused as he was apprehensive. "I thought you were free until..."

Shino withdrew a hand from his pocket, index finger extended. Upon it sat the glistening yellow lump of one of Tsunade's friendly slugs, eyestalks extended in greeting. Neji stood, and rested his hands on his his wife's shoulders.

"I'm afraid this is an emergency," Shino said. "Neji and I are to report in as soon as possible."

"A moment, then, Shino. I'll be there shortly."

Shino vanished, leaving only a lingering buzzing sound and the clattering of chitinous legs. Sakura turned around in his arms, and her eyes were downcast.

"It never fails, does it?"

"No," he said. "But know that I will miss you."

"Even though I'm an undignified, challenging wreck of a woman?" She smiled, and it was somehow shy and self-assured all at once, the same smile that had first caught his attention over tea ten years ago. He'd miss that more than anything.

"I love you because you are. You'd have to be, to live with a cruel, unfeeling monster like myself."

He bent to kiss her, giving her the searing, satisfying union she'd been seeking earlier because teasing her was only fun if it ended this way.

"I love you too," she said, breathing a little less steadily as the touch of her tongue faded from his own. "Take care of yourself and don't be stupid."

He promised.

OoOoOoO

Beneath the same clear sapphire sky and a raging sun, Ino slowed to a walk and halted in the much-beloved shade of the rock overhang marked on her map. Hideo and Takeshi pulled up short behind her, and Daijiro had already made a dash for the thin trickle of cool water dribbling down the rock face.

It was really no wonder Sunagakure could exist with as few ninja as it did, she thought, tugging at her collar to let her shirt breathe a little. Who in their right mind would want this place?

Daijiro had already dumped out what little warm water was left in his canteen and proceeded to fill it, drink from it, and refill it before Hideo gave him a grumpy nudge in the ribs with his foot.

"Hey, there are other people waiting, you know."

"Yeah, yeah. I'm done," Daijiro said, and moved aside to let the rest of the team take their share.

Takeshi offered to refill her bottle, and Ino was more acutely aware of how uncharacteristic it was for him. She silently damned Kiba but let her genin take care of it for her. Her boys did _not_ see her that way, for crying out loud.

"All right," she said after slaking her thirst. "We'll take a twenty minute break and then I think it's just a short hop to the border. We're making good time."

"But we're still behind Team Four," Hideo said, and the other two groused along with him.

Ino tried to smile despite the heat that had glued her bangs to her forehead and her clothes to her skin with more sweat than she knew she had in her.

"Well, they didn't make it to the last phase either," she said gently. "And they weren't all that far ahead of you, if I remember right. You did just fine, boys. I'm proud of you."

It didn't seem to help morale that much. Takeshi kicked a big rock and watched it disturb a flank of loose sandstone that crumbled away down the slope towards the desert floor.

"We could have done better if..."

"That's enough," Ino said in warning. He had a bad habit of assigning blame, whether to himself or others, and she was intent on breaking it before the next exam rolled around. "I know exactly how you did and you did your best knowing what you did at the time. That's all I ask."

Takeshi nodded in apology, but they still looked dejected. She sighed.

"Look, guys. I know of exactly one person who was promoted to chuunin on his first try. Heck, I didn't make it to the finals my first go round." She started naming names, ticking them off on her fingers as examples of people who hadn't gone all the way. There were a lot of luminaries in there, people she knew her team had heard of and respected.

"The point is, it's a hard exam for a reason. First-timers usually don't make it all the way, and I'm proud of you for getting as far as you did."

"If we weren't going to make it anyway, why come all the way out here?"

"For the experience, Takeshi. You've done your blind run. You know you have what it takes to finish the first and second parts of a typical exam, you've seen what it's going to be like next time. And when it rolls around, you'll be ready for it. Team Eight has a year on you guys, and it's that year of experience that got them through."

Chouji had called it, as usual. His team had finished the Labyrinth in third place, with a comfortable margin for error, so they were staying another two weeks for the individual fights that would determine how many of those genin would get their promotions.

"Yeah, next time," Daijiro said. "Next time, guys."

He held up a hand in the secret handshake they'd concocted, and Hideo met it with more enthusiasm than he'd been overtly showing. Takeshi followed after a while, though still a little despondently.

"That's more like it. Now rest up, drink up, take care of business if you have to, and we'll get going in a bit. I don't want to have to stay here any longer than absolutely necessary."

They'd been traveling most of the morning, and she wanted to at least make it to the border and the outpost Sunagakure maintained there so they could rest through the worst part of the day. Hideo had had a point about Kiba's team though. There were enormous dog tracks in the sand, so Akamaru had been through here not too long ago. She supposed it didn't matter too much that they'd gotten a late start, but at least they'd get to rest at the outpost rather than under a tree somewhere in the middle of nowhere as a result.

Well, at least he'd put her somewhat at ease. Her last day in Sunagakure she hadn't quite been able to shake the apprehensive premonition that was still chasing her, but at least Kiba had settled her enough she could have a little fun. Plus, he was easy to mock, since she'd discovered he'd gotten himself drunk enough to pass out in the middle of brushing his teeth on the first night.

Ten minutes later they were en route again, and she found herself daydreaming about a bath and air conditioning. The reappearance of small, desiccated shrubs and stunted grasses was a good sign that they were getting closer to Konohagure's more welcoming climes.

The outpost itself was nothing special.

It was a single story adobe building with rudimentary battlements adorning the roof, and the skeleton of an aluminum radio tower. A stairwell cut into the stone along the north wall suggested that there was a basement, probably for storing supplies.

It was also the only major feature in miles, and they'd just made it as the sun was getting to its absolute worst. Again she noticed the trail of Akamaru's broad paws waltzing around on the ground, and as she followed them into the grass she realized in puzzlement that they were heading south-east. Kiba couldn't have gotten lost, the outpost was right here, for crying out loud.

One of the ninjas manning the outpost shouted to them from the roof top, and leapt down to greet them. He was wearing a smarmy smile at her team's rather bedraggled condition, and she wanted to punch him assuming she could muster the energy.

"Welcome," he said, chewing on a long strand of the weedy local grass. "I'm going to assume you want to come inside."

"Hi," she said, voice croaking and dry, "That'd be nice."

Ugh, she thought, I sound hideous.

Their ally led them around to the stairwell and showed them into the basement, which was dark but cool, thank the gods. He offered them water and showed the boys the best places to lie down, which they filled gratefully. Before she had a chance to sit, though, he motioned for her to come upstairs.

Ino was loathe to leave this newfound haven, but she gathered herself and trudged up behind him into the main room. The sand ninja introduced himself properly and sat her down with some incredibly strong coffee.

"When you leave here, you're going to want to head south-east, along the border instead of heading straight across the usual way. We've closed this crossing for now, but the trade routes further south are still open and we strongly recommend you take your team down that way."

The restlessness that had been stirring in her stomach over the last two or three days exploded back into being with a vengeance, and Ino forced herself to keep still.

"What's happened?"

He shook his head, more nervously than she liked.

"We think there's a missing-nin operating in this region, and we've been ordered not to let anyone head across through here until he's found. And, if I may? You're from Konoha, so I suppose it's only fair I let you know."

"Go on," she said, and the dread rising in her throat brought a bitter taste with it.

"One of the teams from your village were among the victims. We found their papers, they were lead by a man named Itoh, I think?"

"Oh, hell."

She didn't know what else to say. Itoh had been a few years younger than her and her closer friends, and she didn't know him all that well, but what did that matter? He was one of theirs, a citizen for Konoha, who loved and cared for the village and the nation he represented. She could have hated him personally and still avenged his death because they were the same.

And she shivered to think that it could have just as easily been her, ambushed and destroyed unawares.

"I already told your colleague who came through here earlier, the one with the huge dog and the three girls. I'm not sure if you'll catch up to them, they went on about two hours ago and are probably at the first village down that way already. If I'd known there were more of you coming I'd have told him to wait so you could move together."

They set out again mid-afternoon once the breezes had started again, and Ino was wound taut, the humming spring of readiness coiled and alloyed with the same gut feeling that had taunted her ever since they'd arrived in the desert.

"Be ready, guys. I have a bad feeling about this," she said, and was immediately gratified by the shift in their attitudes. Daijiro ceased his usual screwing around and tucked kunai into his sleeves, Takeshi's usual scowl of irritation transformed into one of defiance and warning, and Hideo relaxed. The first time she'd seen it it had thrown her for a loop, but he was more aware and his reflexes were faster when he let himself go. Maybe he was better at this instinct thing than she was.

Even more satisfying was the fact that she hadn't had to explain herself, or tell them what had happened to Itoh's team. There was no sense in frightening them or letting them fret about the youngsters they'd once shared a class with, because that could only impede them when they needed to be on top of their game, even more so than for a silly exam.

They travelled in a loose but well practiced formation, with Hideo in the front projecting a broad spectrum illusion that they were further back than they actually were, and Dai not far behind him covering Takeshi, but still close enough to back up Hideo if that's where the threats were. Ino took up the rear position because she was the fastest, and could afford to turn and check behind them when necessary.

Time slowed to a crawl when she was on alert, and this was no different. Every shrub and tree needed to be checked, and even though they hadn't cut their speed the miles shrank at a turtle's pace.

If not for the screaming siren in her gut, Ino would have been bored at that point, and that's what she was thinking when the katana burst unannounced from between her sixth and seventh ribs and tore free from her chest in a scarlet spray of shredded flesh.

Or, at least, that was what the rest of the world saw, and Ino was incredibly thankful she'd taken precautions as she spun to meet her attacker, whose sword had actually passed two feet to her right as her illusion bled out and fizzled on the sun-parched clay. Her boys were already recovering from the shock of seeing her die, and she would have to apologize later for fooling them as well, but having them interact with the genjutsu instead of her lent it the credence that had saved her life.

But her mind was blank and she spun, a kunai already in each hand as she reached for the sword still cleaving through its recovery. If she wasn't particularly strong, she was light and fast, and she slashed upward, aiming for the tendons of the wrist holding the blade.

Her attacker stepped back with a deft sureness, and he was good enough that the genjutsu hadn't fazed him. He was tall too, taller than even her by the better part of a foot and with the sun in her eyes and the hood over his head she couldn't see anything of his face other than his choppy black hair. The details could wait, and she kept her focus clean, eyes on his torso and her mind on the blade as she stepped into his reach and flicked the kunai in her left hand up towards his head, forcing him to tilt his head away or risk taking the whole of it into his chin.

Behind her, Takeshi's hands flew through a few seals, and the handful of kunai that he lobbed past her and her opponent landed in the dry grass, setting it aflame to give him something else to think about.

Even as she closed, her attacker slashed out in the midst of his recovery, and she ducked and spun beneath the blade, traveling against it. Ino let her index finger slip through the loop at the end of her kunai's handle, freeing her hands long enough to flash the seals for a replacement in case she needed it, and came up on the man's defenseless weapon arm and struck.

He turned away, and metal clashed on metal as his sword came down behind his shoulder to force away her blade. She swore under her breath and wove back. She breathed in the pause and the smoke stung her throat.

Shuriken rained down as Daijiro and Hideo took their opportunity to strike, and before he could retaliate against them, she rushed back, hoping to take advantage of the momentary distraction. He was good, but there were four of them and she could afford to take small rests like this one while he couldn't. He'd lost the element of surprise, and she'd make him pay for it.

The air rang with the clattering cacophony of traded blows and the crackling thunder of the flash fire, interspersed with the patter of falling shuriken. Even though she held a nominal advantage, this style of battle wasn't Ino's forte, and she knew it. Much better to sow confusion and disorder from a range, when she had the advantage of surprise, and then strike with her team when her opponent was mired in his own mind.

Now, she was forced into a straight contest of taijutsu, which was not preferred. Even so, it wasn't like she was helpless. She evaded another high strike by rolling low and to the side, and her hands found purchase in the cracks of the burning ground -- she'd barely had time to throw out some chakra to protect them -- and she wrenched her torso in a half circle, her hips carrying her legs through a vicious double kick at head height. Both feet missed, but she landed on them in a crouch, and slashed back the way she came.

She connected, and grinned as the satisfying sound of tearing cloth echoed close in her ears...and then frowned just as quickly as she realized it wasn't flesh she was cutting into. Light assailed her eyes and she triggered her kawarimi out of pure reflex.

From the place of the scorched dead tree that had assumed the temporary appearance of her body, she watched herself fry, wracked with flaying arcs of brilliant azure-white electricity. There was always something terrible about it and she shivered despite the heat.

"Was that...was that a clone or something?" Hideo said, and Ino could feel her heart thumping as the adrenalin burned out.

"I guess. This just...this just proves we're in a lot of trouble here. Whoever sent it is going to be around here somewhere so look out."

But things were quiet again until sundown.

OoOoOoO

By the time Sakura returned home, it was already well past noon.

She threw the groceries in the fridge -- Neji had of course eaten nearly everything there had been when she'd been called away and hadn't replaced it because these things didn't actually occur to him unless he was prompted -- and threw herself down on the couch with a disgruntled sigh. He was already long gone, and though the hallway closet door was closed, she wouldn't have to check it to know the shelf reserved for his gear was already cleared out.

A neatly folded scrap of paper on the coffee table caught her eye; he did everything neatly, from folding his clothes to tucking in chairs when he left a room. When they'd first come to live in this place, she'd harbored incredible doubts as to the flak she'd receive over things that were not at right angles to each other, and yet he'd not once complained or raised an eyebrow.

For a while she'd almost tried to test him, she remembered, plucking the little tent of white parchment from the tabletop. She never let herself become messy per se, but she had folded things awkwardly and had put away the dishes in mixed and uneven stacks, and still he said nothing. She'd discovered that he was a meticulous perfectionist and incredibly harsh on disorder and disorganization -- in himself.

He simply did not care what other people did or thought. And since she wore her own clothes, and was responsible for her shelf in the equipment closet, and generally tolerated about as much sloppiness in the washroom as she did, it became a non-issue.

She eventually admitted it to him, and he'd just said that they had far more important things to actually aggravate each other about. Which was true, after all. When they did fight, it was volcanic, like the time he'd discovered that Hinata and Naruto had been playing house in secret for six years right under his nose.

She'd won that one, but only after she'd screamed that they were adults and could do whatever they damn well pleased and he'd gone to sulk on the training grounds for nearly seven hours in the middle of the night because he was too proud to admit defeat, too stoic to admit it hurt he'd not been trusted, too much of an asshole to be happy for them, and too damned irrational about the few people he really cared about.

They agreed that the small things could hang.

Sakura unfolded the note, and his writing was tidy, legible, and flowed like water, and obviated her plan to go harass Tsunade to find out where he'd been sent. Not that Tsunade ever told her, since it violated far too many rules, but she felt it was worth the effort anyway.

He was going somewhere into the badlands on the Kaze no Kuni border with Shino, to meet up with Shikamaru and Sunagakure's representative. There'd been a diplomatic incident with deaths involved, but he knew no more. Shikamaru was supposed to explain the rest when they arrived.

Well, she thought, at least he was in good company, although she hoped that the sand-nin had some medical training anyway. Still, she was left with a handful of shattered plans and nothing else to do for the rest of the day.

Dejected, she was about to toss the note back on the table when she noticed a post-script on the verso, and flipped over the small page to read it. Check the closet, his words suggested, and who was she to argue if he was going to entertain her?

She rolled back and kicked herself upright, hurling herself towards that closed door with perhaps too much enthusiasm. His shelf was, of course, empty save a few bits and pieces -- extra kunai and batteries and whatnot. For a while she couldn't quite understand what it was he wanted her to see, until her eye wandered down to her cluttered shelf.

Sitting atop the crumpled crimson nest of one of her spare combat tunics was a block of what looked like granite, a pale salmon colour mottled with flecks of black olivine and shot through with veins of quartz. It was about the size of her cupped hands as she gathered it up and brought it into the light, and once out of the shadows she realized it was a reasonably good impression of the flower that gave her her name.

Sakura knew right away he'd carved it, because he'd taken up a new training regime about a year ago and she'd caught him at it. At first, it had been laughable, watching him jabbing at a boulder in the woods with just his fingers instead of the training dummies that would at least burn with the exuded chakra he used as a weapon. Scowling, he'd explained that he could see the fissures in the rock, and was trying to refine his control of jyuuken to the point where he could exploit those weaknesses and break it apart.

The first time it had been successful had been something to behold, when he tapped the stone and it calved like a glacier breaking into the sea, shedding a slice of rock thicker than her head.

That had been months ago, and now she held the rough-hewn fruits of his effort. It wasn't delicate by any means, or even pretty, and the idea had probably only come to him as he was already chopping another great stone into pieces. But it was hers now, and if he wasn't particularly romantic in the usual and prolific way she imagined other men might be, his gifts were simple and honest. And if they were sparse and few between, they held more meaning and value individually.

She could see talent in the stone flower, however, and she felt the first inklings of a plan to encourage him. Maybe she could convince him to try other types of rock, more pliable and better-suited to sculpture -- and she almost laughed at the thought. It was totally absurd, trying to manipulate him into taking up art, but stranger things had happened.

Things were not the way she'd ever imagined them, but things changed. She'd changed, when she'd realized that she had to make her own way if she wanted to keep up, instead of following others on their paths. When she'd realized that feeling a certain way about a person was only a tenth as good as knowing they felt the same way.

She'd learned that the hard way and it was a lesson she was not bound to forget, and she carefully placed the flower on the kitchen table. It looked good there, and she couldn't help but sneak glances at it now and then while she went about the rest of her routine.

Still, Sakura had gone entirely stir-crazy an hour later with nothing better to do than read medical journals and the dry, retrospective case studies they entailed.

The sky outside had ripened from the pale crystalline blue of the morning to a watery indigo, and the first wisps of high, tangled clouds were drifting across the face of heaven as she made her way across town. She'd picked up some confections in the morning and intended to leave her adoptive niece a present to congratulate her on a job well done or to console her on a chance taken -- more likely the latter.

Her target was an old medium-rise building not actually that far from Naruto's old home, a somewhat more decrepit building further away from the center of town. It lacked style and taste in a way that complemented Naruto himself, but that only gave it a character that seemed appropriate.

Sakura had her own key, even though the apartment's usual inhabitants mostly used the skylight or windows for access, and she gave the disused lock a chance to redeem itself for once.

"Hello?"

She wasn't certain there would necessarily be anyone here as Naruto had an assignment after all, and he might have already left. There was no reply so she let herself the rest of the way in.

It was much cleaner than she remembered Naruto ever being. The kitchen sink was, of course, full of dirty bowls and the garbage full of empty ramen containers, but at least there weren't strange stains marking the countertops and unholy growths crawling along their bottoms. Living with Haruka had been good for him.

She tucked her present for the girl into the fridge, and busied herself clearing the mess in the sink, somewhat disappointed there was no one here to talk to. Afterward, she cleared out the dryer and kicked open the door to his room, intending to dump it on his bed with a scathing note about keeping up on his chores.

At least, until she heard the terrified squeak of surprise and spotted Hinata pulling up the sheets to cover herself.

Sakura chose the better part of valor and dumped the clothing on the couch instead, shouting back an apology.

"Sorry! I had no idea you were in here!"

There was the rustle of blankets from within and a frenzied scrabble, and then very slowly, Hinata dared peek out into the living room, scarlet-faced and wearing one of Naruto's larger t-shirts. And not much else.

"Um. Hi, Sakura. I think...I think I overslept."

"I'd say you did, yes, among other things. Do you know what time it is?"

Hinata looked sheepish, and tried in vain to pull tangles from her hair.

"Eleven?" she hazarded, after some thought.

"Worse than that," Sakura said, and marched her in the direction of the washroom. "Go clean up, I'll get you something to eat."

Sakura had to admit, as the steady drum-beat of water hammered away in the background, that Neji had had a point in his outrage regarding what went on in this place. Even when he'd admitted there was little he or anyone could or should do to stop it, he'd warned her that his clan would stop at nothing to destroy _both_ Naruto and Hinata if they found out, and even her father would be unable to stop it even if he cared to.

It could only get worse with Hiashi ailing as he was.

"And here I thought you were a morning person," Sakura said, as she pressed a mug into Hinata's hands before they sat down.

"I didn't get much sleep," she said, trying to sink into the folds of her shirt.

"Don't you ever worry that someone is going to realize you're not where you're supposed to be? I love you and Neji both, but your family...well, your clan still scares me."

Hinata shook her head, in the curt, controlled motions of an aristocrat, and the shift in the conversation seemed to bring wake up the Hyuuga in her.

"Not as much as I used to. Naruto helped me build the seal...it's a fairly powerful illusion."

Hinata blushed only a little at the mention of his name, but settled herself. Sakura saw the poise seep into her friend's small body, incremental corrections in her posture that left her an untouchable noblewoman. It was hard to reconcile, and if not for the perpetual softness of Hinata's eyes it would have been impossible to tell it was still her.

Circumstance had forced the poor girl to make an actress of herself.

"I thought your eyes could differentiate between illusions and reality. Except, wait, Neji was saying something about this."

"It's a useful misconception. We can see, for example, if an illusionary person lacks a chakra system. Unfortunately it feeds into the myth of infallibility some people have built up around our clan."

Hinata let slip a tiny, self-satisfied smile even though she was still looking into her tea out of embarrassment.

"It's a two-layered enchantment -- a visual layer, and another inside it to fool anyone using the byakugan. You can't tell anyone, though..."

"As if I would, silly. I really wasn't expecting to find you here, though. Neji was late coming home last night -- he said there was a clan meeting, although he didn't explain much."

Hinata's eyes darkened and her shoulders stiffened in memory, but as she related the course of the meeting, she looked more hopeful than anything. The thought of Naruto as Hokage and husband seemed to lighten even the weight of Hinata's embarrassment, and Sakura wondered if ever there was a woman who deserved to steal back her happiness as much as Hinata.

"I...I envy Neji, you know. I envy you both, but I could never say it to him. Sometimes...sometimes I feel that who I am is more of a curse than his juuin is. It's a selfish thought, I know, but..."

"I can't say I blame you," Sakura said. "I'll say this, though: Tsunade has told me she doesn't think there's anyone else who should have the job..."

Hinata's sudden levity was infectious, but Sakura was forced to remember the Hokage's one caveat, and Hinata's face fell just as quickly.

"...but she says he's not ready yet."

"It's...I'm sorry, I have to say it. It's Uchiha, isn't it?"

Sakura blinked.

"What? I mean, she hasn't told me, but...what?"

"It is, I'm sure. I think...I like to think I know Naruto better than most people, even you. He still talks about him sometimes. Uchiha is like...was like the brother I think Naruto wanted. Like family, just like he considers you his sister now. He still wants to find him, maybe bring him back."

"We haven't even heard of Sasuke since the Akatsuki collapsed."

She remembered, and it was painful. He'd arrived on the last battleground as she, Naruto, and the others rested and licked their wounds, clustered around the corpse of another bearer of the sharingan. One they hadn't known existed, but one who had to die in any case for the survival of the village.

Both she and Naruto had called out to him, and Naruto had tried to chase him down, but he'd vanished. She'd never forget the look of pain and the writhing anger she'd seen in him before he left.

"I know," Hinata said, saddened. "He could be anywhere, and I don't think the trail could get colder. I just...I want Naruto to realize he has family here, more than Haruka or I. Or you."

Sakura knew exactly what she felt, and let her fingers rest gently around Hinata's wrist to underline their unofficial sisterhood. After all, hadn't she felt the same, once, when she wished Sasuke could see what she already knew?

OoOoOoO

Konohagakure's outpost was miles away different from the one mirrored by Sunagakure on the far side of their shared buffer nation, if you didn't count the secret sub-basements both possessed. It was somewhat less conspicuous, having the beginnings of a forest growing all around it, and built primarily of wood. Even so, it was much larger, with a fenced in courtyard, a much more overt armory, and a two story building with a similar radio aerial jutting from its rooftop.

Even with the proximity of the forest, it was still an ungodly hot day, and Shikamaru was glad to be outdoors where the breeze and the shade could shelter him, rather than stuck in that stuffy, insulated building with windows that blocked the wind.

The outpost was quiet today, though, the gate locked and sealed. He'd assigned the normal contingent of ninjas stationed here to somewhat more intensive patrols up and down the border instead of the looser, more sporadic bandit hunting expeditions they normally mounted. There was only one team left, and they were assigned the cramped indoor duties he hated.

Having a close ally like Suna on this border was one thing which both nations could appreciate. Suna didn't have a lot of manpower, in particular, though their ninjas were of high quality, but being able to station them primarily along the long northern border instead of being stretched thin on two fronts was a clear strategic advantage. For Konoha, who had many ninjas but also very many borders, it was one less thing to worry about, even though they tried to keep relations as cordial as possible. Being surrounded tended to inspire anxiety in a nation.

"No sign of them yet," Temari said, leaning over the edge of the roof above him. "You're sure you let them know this was urgent?"

"For the last time, yes, I did. They're not late yet."

Temari was drumming her fingers on the eaves, and she hadn't let up in over an hour. She didn't seem to notice, but her impatience was maddening sometimes. Well, whatever, he thought, and started up the tall ladder leaned up against the side of the main house.

"Or you could just jump up here. So who are they sending anyway?"

He shook his head in irritation, and she grinned down at him.

"Neji and Shino. If you remember who they are."

"Neji...with the white eyes, right? Shino...not ringing a bell."

"Aburame, if that helps," he said, and hoisted himself up onto the shingles with an exaggerated grunt. He waved a bottle of water in her direction without looking, and she took it, also without looking.

"Oh, right. Lots of bugs."

She was one of the few who could contemplate the notion without shivering in disgust, but she was like that. She ate scorpions if there wasn't anything else around, but maybe that was a Suna thing anyway. She drank fast, gulping back a third of the bottle before wiping the corner of her mouth with the back of her wrist and recapping it.

She was getting restless, and there was nothing more volatile than Temari when she was restless. At her core was some stellar ball of energy, he imagined, a furnace that burned hot all the time, and if it wasn't given an outlet it would build until it burst -- usually to the detriment of everyone around her.

She vented in two rather distinct ways. Either she did it through destruction, whether she was carving up a swath of desert training or by slaughtering some dumb fool on a mission; or she did it through him, which was frequently just as painful in the aftermath as it was pleasurable in the act, not that he minded.

As they were on alert now, they were pretty much limited to the first option, which meant he was just going to have to put up with her. Oh well.

And she hated waiting. The murders had only served to fuel the engine within her; she wanted justice and vengeance and resolution come hell or high water, and she needed to be doing something about it. Anything more than sitting here on a rooftop with him waiting for reinforcements to arrive.

That aside, they were more alike than he necessarily enjoyed. She was bright, and probably one of Suna's best minds, not to mention a close relative and confidante of the Kazekage -- which meant she was ideal for helping to coordinate strategics with his country. Shikamaru had volunteered for the spot, because he'd imagined he could avoid the hassle of regular missions and keep to himself in a quiet part of the woods. Big miscalculation, that, since he hadn't factored her into the equation before committing. And it didn't relieve him from having to report in for the occasional mission, either.

She kicked him to get his attention. When he didn't react, she settled for squeezing the inside of his thigh a little too hard and a little too high for comfort.

"Hey. Talk to me."

"Fine," he said, and shrugged. "I'm still trying to piece together the why here."

"Lay it on me, Mr. Strategic Liaison," she said, and turned to wrap her legs around his torso. Shikamaru stared out over the edge of the forest and out onto the plains where they'd found the corpses. The river was little more than a silver glint in the basin below them, hours away even at a good speed.

"On the one hand, it's possible we have an agitator looking to start problems for us by disturbing the peace. The more I think about it, though, the less I like it. Some of the kills are far too personal."

"We did consider the sadist angle."

"Yeah, we did. But if he's good enough to put down a jounin before they even notice him, he could easily toy with all three genin rather than just the one or two he has been. So why not? There's no consistency."

"He's clearly playing with them, though. The jounin in each group went down fast, but the ones he chose to live fought on for minutes at a time."

"Right. But why?"

Temari looked thoughtful. Even though she her long legs were wrapped around him, they'd lost some of their nervous tension. Glad I could help, he thought sardonically, and he lifted her right leg up over his head so he could lie down. Temari just let her leg drop unceremoniously onto his ribcage.

"Ow."

"Maybe we're going about this the wrong way. Of the kids he was chasing around, what do they have in common? Not gender, we have two boys and two girls in that category."

"Three boys," he corrected. "The first one, with the broken neck. Didn't use his sword."

"Point still stands. Alright. Two boys from Kumo, one girl from Oto, and one boy and a girl from Konoha. Jutsus, bloodlines?"

"One confirmed lightning user from Kumo, the girl from Oto didn't leave any traces of elemental manipulation -- probably more sound based tricks, but there's no telling what she could do with that either. Sound doesn't leave many traces."

"At least one fire user from Konoha, although we've already figured out that our culprit can use fire himself."

"That's pretty disparate," he said. The pattern wasn't coming to him...there was always a pattern, and this time it danced just out of reach. Was their killer that sick and unconventional that there was no rhyme or reason to it?

"Bloodlines in common? That'd be a stretch."

"Nah, not in three villages at once. Besides, how would he know who had what? Unless his information is better than ours."

Temari snorted, derisive.

"Unlikely. We have the collected intelligence of two nations at our disposal, he's one man. He couldn't possibly know even what elemental preferences these kids had."

"So we're back to square one. This is almost painful."

A breeze blew, and the clouds overhead drifted along with it. He stared up at them, wispy bundles of condensed chaos, and the problem before him was just as ineffable and vague. It bothered him, and if there was any one thing Shikamaru absolutely despised, it was being bothered.

"Ow. Ow, ow. Shit."

Temari pulled her legs in and retreated up the roof, hands over her face.

"What is it?"

"Got something in my eye," she said, and looked into her lap and started blinking in a pained rhythm. "It's all the bloody pollen in this country, at least sand leaves right away."

"Let me see," he said, and sat up slowly, climbing up the shingles after her.

"No, I've got it, ow."

"No you don't. Now let me see."

She closed her eye again, and reluctantly stretched out so that he could settle in next to her. His palms found her cheeks, and he let his thumb drift up to her right eye and gently pull the eyelid down. He saw the rogue eyelash.

"Blink, then look up and left."

"Don't you dare touch my eye, Nara, don't you fucking..."

"Relax," he said, and licked his other index finger and reached in. "Got it."

Her eye was still tearing up a little, so he let her close it again and rubbed gently against the closed eyelid. Her face was warm in his hands, and he realized she was leaning her head into his palm if only ever so slightly.

"Is it red?" she said, and she slowly looked out again.

"Not really," he lied, and let himself linger in the hazel pools of her irises. There was something familiar about this, something about the way his hand rested on her cheek, his thumb drifting back and forth across her cheekbone.

And then it hit him.

"The bruise," he said, and Temari blinked, confused.

"What?"

"The bruise. The first kid, with the broken neck. His attacker was holding him kind of like this...to look," he remembered the placement of the thumb and shifted his own, pulling down at her eyelid, and her reflex fought him this time.

"To look at his eye," she said, as her mind caught up.

"He's looking for eyes. But then why kill some of them right away?"

Temari looked up at him, comprehension dawning and she shone with understanding.

"They're all dark haired. All the genin he killed right away were light-haired. Blondes, reds, light browns."

"Except the girl from Oto," he said, but she seemed to be on the right track.

"You didn't see her roots? They were black, or dark brown, at least."

"Dark haired, and...dark eyed. The one with the broken neck had green eyes, so he didn't bother. And the girl on Itoh's team had blue, and she died faster than the other one with dark hair."

"Progress! So why?"

He sat down again, bracing his fingers against each other and staring back out at the plain. Interested only in dark haired, dark eyed genin. And only about this age, or else he would have struck at a previous exam. Killed regardless of nationality, so he couldn't possibly know which exact one he was targeting.

"He's looking for someone. One specific genin. He doesn't know which country they're from, though, so he's hitting all the teams coming back in this direction."

"That sounds like a terrible plan. Wouldn't there be a better way?"

"Do you really think someone could sneak into your village with Gaara there?"

Temari shook her head. No, not when the sand itself was watching, so their quarry had no foreknowledge.

"So why toy with them?" she said, "Why drag out the kill over several minutes...unless he's not planning to kill whoever he's looking for. He needs them alive for some reason."

"He's _testing_ them," Shikamaru said, and Temari pointed at him in recognition. "He wants to see what they can do, and he kills the ones that don't pass to cover his tracks."

"We're still left with the problem of why he's only picking out the dark-haired, dark-eyed ones."

The pieces locked in his mind, drawn to each other by gossamer strands of spider silk that coiled and snapped into iron joints and slammed the components together in a shuddering cascade of conclusions.

"Oh, _shit_," he said, and leapt from the roof to find the radio, leaving Temari behind to puzzle out the rest herself.

OoOoOoO

Akamaru was not doing all that well, Kiba thought, hating to admit it.

The desert just wasn't a good place for an animal as big or as furred as his monster dog, and even though they'd set out as early as possible to avoid the heat for as long as possible, he hadn't expected having to take the long route around.

Panting hard, Akamaru made his way up the trail at his side, his great tongue a deep, almost purple red, sticky with fat, foamy ropes of thick saliva, and he'd stopped making those little complaining whines about an hour ago.

"Sorry, bud," he said, patting Akamaru on his shoulders, which were a little slick with perspiration that shouldn't have been there. "Ten minutes to the river, think you can make it?"

Three days near Sunagakure had left the big dog a little more tired and dehydrated than even Akamaru had expected, but he was putting on a good show and let out a quiet grunt of determination.

"I'm not sure I can, Kiba-sensei," Nanami said, and Kiba made a raspberry.

"Suck it up, princess. I don't see him complaining and he has to wear a fur coat all the time. Come on, it's just a little farther, and there's supposed to be a place we can stop for the night not too far from there."

"I thought we were going to the border today," Haruka said. She was breathing hard too, but they all were at that point.

Kiba shook his head.

"Nope. This detour's too long to make it in one leg, so we'll have to stop by the river."

They made it over the last rise and the glittering curve of the river was a beautiful thing to see. Akamaru found it within him just enough energy for a final sprint, and took a running leap into the middle of the stream. He landed with a splash and he ignored trying to use his swollen tongue in favor of just biting at the river below its surface. Kiba jumped in after him, not far behind Nanami, and the cold, fast moving water was a blessing as it washed away the heat.

Still dripping, he wandered back to shore where Kiyoka and Haruka were drinking from their canteens instead. When she was done, Kiyoka filled her bottle again only to dump it out on the sand, and Kiba wasn't surprised to see her colony swarm back from the thin cloud that she'd dispersed about her to drink. Unnerving as always, but he was used to it.

For her part, Haruka merely submerged her feet in the stream and retied her long black pony-tail behind her head before sitting on the jacket she'd wrapped around her waist after the sun had come up.

"Aren't you two jumping in?" he said, shaking out his hair and slumping down on the sand next to them. Nanami was still splashing around and had taken to trying to tip Akamaru over, no trivial pursuit.

"I thought you said we needed to be on guard," Haruka said, and Kiba was reminded again of the fairly terrible news he'd gotten from the Suna outpost.

"Yes, and I meant it. But if you're hot, go for it. Akamaru hasn't smelled anything yet, and unless I'm wrong her bugs give us pretty good warning anyway."

"I'm alright," Kiyoka said. "The kikaichu don't like having water in their nests anyway. Showers are fine, baths not so much."

Haruka shook her head.

"No, I'll be fine." She'd taken what looked like a squishier stress ball out of her pocket and began massaging it with her fingers. He'd seen her playing with it recently, and wondered what it was about.

"There's a town another two hours downstream, and we'll stop there for the night. We're further north than I'd like to be, but I think we were starting to need water pretty badly, especially Akamaru."

"Why are we taking this route, anyway?"

Kiba wasn't sure exactly what he could tell her. Haruka was good at picking out lies, and Kiyoka was even better. Nanami would buy anything but he hadn't had much success at getting anything past these two. He sighed.

"People died," he said. "We're trying to stay out of everyone's hair while they look into it."

That was pretty good, actually, he thought. No details, they'd find out about Itoh and his team when they got back, and he'd deal with that then. They seemed satisfied, at least. Behind him, Nanami had given up, and Akamaru was trotting back, clearly feeling much better.

Still, their detour wasn't as far out as he wanted them to be. They were too far north, and too close. Not only that, Itoh was supposed to be good, probably better than he even was, and if he'd been killed by the lunatic out here, Kiba wasn't too secure about his own chances.

He wasn't going to scare the girls, though, and he needed them healthy enough to cut and run if necessary, so he'd made the call and they'd gone to the river. They weren't going to linger, though.

"Alright, girls. Let's move -- we can buy some hot food and proper drinks by sundown. Hands up who's hungry."

"Because we're all still in a classroom," Haruka said, and he smiled; she had her sarcasm back, anyway, as she'd been more quiet than usual since failing the exam. Nanami was waving her hand with abandon, and Kiyoka tilted her hand up at the elbow before letting it drop again. Akamaru sat on his wet haunches and was throwing one of his big forepaws around in awkward circles.

"Then let's go. Same as before -- bugs out, eyes open."

They took off at a relatively even, easy pace, keeping close to the river but cutting past the bends where they could. Kiyoka and Akamaru took the lead, with Nanami tagging along closely. He noticed Haruka hanging back a little, which usually meant she wanted to talk but wasn't going to ask.

"So what's that thing you've been squeezing for the last three weeks?"

She glanced over momentarily, her eyes a pair of black flashes in the sun before she turned them back towards their destination.

"I'm supposed to be practicing chakra manipulation. Dad showed me something...but I haven't been able to do it yet." She sounded disappointed, but he had an inkling as to what it was she was trying to do.

"Neat. Well, you'll get it, you've already got excellent control."

She shook her head.

"Not as good as his. Or Hinata's, and she can't do it either. I'm not as good as they are."

"Hey, don't worry about it. It's a hard technique, most people can't do it. But if anyone can, you can. Keep at it."

They bounded through the brush in the peculiar, bounding gait of someone using chakra, and the grass rippled in their wake. Kiba sniffed, there was smoke on the wind coming from the west, but there wasn't any visible on the horizon. A small burn, but bigger than a campfire. Odd.

"You're just saying that to cheer me up," Haruka said, unconvinced.

"No, I'm not. You've got talent, kiddo. Your dad's proud of you, that much I can guarantee."

"Not as much as if I were his real daughter."

"Is that what you're worried about? I promise you it would be absolutely no different. He thinks you can do it, and I don't think you should second guess him on that. Ask him."

It wasn't like her to do this, he thought, usually so sure of herself, so prepared, and maybe even just a little bit arrogant. He supposed maybe the exam had shaken her more than she let on.

"I know, I just...I promised him we'd make chuunin, and he said I could. I didn't. A promise is a big thing for him."

"He'll understand. What's important to him...and what's important to me is that you have the will to do it, not that you do it all perfectly on the first try. Do you know how old your father was when he passed the exam?"

"Ten, I'll bet," she said, miserable.

"Ha! He didn't tell you?" Kiba chuckled. "He was seventeen. Me and everyone else in our class beat him by at least three years."

Haruka scowled.

"Liar. There's no way anyone as awesome as him took that long."

"Not kidding," he said, and turned into a clumsy sideways gallop to fold a hand over his heart where she could see it. "I swear."

"I'm asking him when I get home," she said, "and if you're lying I'll figure this rasengan thing out just so I can hit you with it."

"That's the spirit," he said, laughing.

Haruka fell silent.

"Oh, come on. I'm not making fun of you," he said, remonstrative. She didn't say anything. "Even though I do sometimes, I mean it this time. You'll figure it out, and there's absolutely no way you could possibly disappoint Naruto. Besides run away from the village and become a..."

Something was wrong, he realized, and stopped, digging his heels in the sand. The smells weren't matching up. Haruka wasn't really sprinting up ahead of him, her scent was right in front of him, and Kiyoka and Nanami were catching up to him, not ahead of the group like they should have been.

"Kai!" he shouted, trying to focus his chakra and purge the illlusion. The world around him shuddered and for a fraction of a second he could hear the girls screaming at him.

He tried again, with no more success. It was powerful, too, and genjutsu wasn't his strong point. He took a breath. This was bad, really bad. He reached deep, down into the soul of his being, to the reserve of strength and identity at his core and...

...found himself staring out through the disjointed perspective of the infernal two-headed dire wolf he and Akamaru sometimes became. Thank the gods Akamaru had the presence of mind and initiative that he did.

He was disoriented for a moment, something that was made so much worse when Akamaru took charge and launched them howling at a dark, humanoid shape that had managed to come up behind them while he'd been blithely carrying on.

They spun through a supercharged gatsuuga, missed, and curved around to land where they'd started from. The part of Akamaru's mind resident in their shared beast agreed he was okay to take his own form back, and the jutsu dissolved, splitting them back apart.

"Fool me once," he said, grunting as he stood up. Someone dressed in black was walking towards them with all the quiet assurance of the grim reaper, sword drawn and glinting with the red of the falling sun.

The girls smelled like relief and growing confidence, and as he shifted more chakra to his senses he could hear the chattering of a thousand chitinous legs amid the crackle of the fireball Haruka blasted out towards their attacker.

And under that, under the ashy aftermath, he could smell their opponent. He committed it to memory, the unique gestalt of pheromones and flavors that made up a person.

Strange, he'd met this person before.

A breeze caught the smoke, and blew what was left of the fireball away, towards the forest on the high ridge of the horizon...and the man remained, unharmed, untouched, and unfazed.

His stomach turned, and Akamaru was growling, low and dangerous, running on instinct. Kiba's own instinct went into profound overdrive and he knew he was in trouble.

"Girls...run. Run now. I'll follow when I can."

"What?" Confusion and disbelief tinged Nanami's voice, and even ever-obedient Kiyoka was looking at him as though he'd turned into a mushroom.

"We don't split up the team," Haruka said. "That's what you said."

"_Run!_" he shouted, "_Right fucking now!_"

They didn't hesitate much longer, but he had no illusions about their loyalty -- they wouldn't go nearly far enough.

"It's been a long, long time, Uchiha," he said, and the weight of the kunai in his hand was nowhere near as comforting as it should have been.

Sasuke didn't say anything, merely adjusted the angle of his weapon.

"So you're the one killing off mere genin? Seems like it's a little beneath you."

No response.

"Care to tell me wh..."

The rush was sudden, far too fast for him to dodge completely. Kiba was proud of what speed he had, and his ability to leverage that with the power to severely hurt an opponent before they could do much about it. It was above average -- but nothing like this.

He barely parried, and the force behind the blow was nearly enough to make him lose his grip on the blade.

Akamaru took the opportunity to make a low lunge at Sasuke's feet, his teeth snapping in thin air as he missed time and again. Sasuke danced back, tossing aside Kiba's latest attack with contempt, and he fought to keep his balance. As he spun, Kiba was certain he spotted the crimson fire of the great, bloody sharingan in Sasuke's eyes.

Yep, I'm in deep trouble, he thought, as he rolled away from the flurry of burning embers that rained down around him.

He wasn't fast enough to outpace Sasuke, and that god damned eye jutsu of his was just going to let him spot attacks before they happened. He didn't have too many options.

Akamaru picked up the idea before he'd even completed it, and loped around to run with him in parallel as they shot back towards Sasuke. His hands flashed through seals, and even knowing as he did that the sharingan would let Sasuke know exactly what he was doing, he hoped it wouldn't tell him why.

He finished the jutsu, sent the chakra roaring to his left foot, and let it burrow into the ground and he finished his step just as Sasuke was in mid-jump. He'd timed it well, and a ring of clay slabs shot up out of the ruined ground in a circle around Sasuke as he landed. Akamaru was already in attack mode the instant the walls went up and he shot up in a fanged whirlwind to slam down into the trap from above.

Kiba wasted no time, and his own gatsuuga was already in motion before Akamaru struck. Akamaru closed off any upward escape, and he slammed through the earthen prison a fraction of a second later, tracking his target by scent alone. His claws made contact with something, shredding it and ruining it beyond recognition, but he didn't feel any victory as he landed.

No, he thought as he touched down. Definitely a clone.

Ozone burned his nostrils, and he threw up a much weaker wall between himself and Sasuke where he reappeared. A fist full of lightning flashed through it as though it weren't there and buried itself in his chest -- he'd just had enough time to lay down a kawarimi, putting himself back between his team and Sasuke.

The Uchiha wasn't even breathing hard, and his own heart was racing at full speed already. This was going terribly, Kiba thought, as a buzzing filled the air and a veritable horde of beetles took off out of the grass around Sasuke. He glanced around, took a breath, and then torched all the grass in a ten meter circle around him.

Kiba heard Kiyoka scream in the distance as a significant chunk of her colony died. Oh gods, girls, he prayed, run...I don't think I'm going to win this one. Akamaru circled around back to his side, spitting and snarling.

Sasuke blinked once, very deliberately, and Kiba's gut instinct, the force of nature buried deep within the most primitive parts of his brain, the early warning system with which all animals were blessed -- it shrieked with fury and fear.

His hands moved through seals faster than he knew was possible and he threw them to the ground with the force of his entire body. The Gates of Rashomon erupted from the dirt, summoned from the pits of hell by a full third of his remaining chakra.

Watching from his knees, Kiba was filled with a sick fascination and awe as the supposedly invincible gates burned with an intense, smokeless flame the colour of pitch.

"Knew that'd come in handy one day," he said, and he wasn't entirely sure he believed it.

OoOoOoO

Hinata left her father's room with the same sinking sensation as always. Still no improvement, and at this point the physicians said that the only thing keeping him alive was his own stubborn will. The most that could be done was to ensure that he was comfortable and doped beyond pain in his waning days.

And still, she could not bear the thought of him passing. Even though she'd already inherited most, if not all, of his extant duties, the thought of trying to guide the entire clan was daunting, even without the omnipresent meddling of the other family heads.

There was no turning back, though. She'd told him, on his deathbed no less, that she was capable, and she would. For her own sake, and those of the family that had been marginalized, like Neji. And as Hanabi would be, if she didn't fix things.

She remembered what Naruto had said, the last time she'd expressed those worries to him.

"Always better to be underestimated," he'd said, grinning that vulpine grin of his, full of the unconventional cunning that typified him. "They remember who you were, Hinata, and they think that's who you are. Just because they haven't changed in years doesn't mean you haven't. Knock 'em dead."

It was true, even if she didn't feel it all the time.

No, they'd learn she wasn't to be trifled with, and damn their forgone conclusions.

Hanabi followed her out not long after, and she looked no happier.

"Hinata," she said, her voice low and somber, "I still can't imagine how it will be when he goes."

"Neither can I."

They left for the garden, trading the stark contrasts of stained wood and luminescent paper for colors of summer, green with the vitality of life in its prime. There was cheer here, hiding in the small, pristine blooms that lined the paths and the pond, but it was carefully groomed and trimmed within the bounds of a restrictive aesthetic.

"I ran into Elder Hisoka today," Hanabi said. "I was due to meet my team for training, so we didn't talk long. He wanted to know how father was."

"You know he's just trying to figure out how long until he dies. So long as he lives they won't dare to act on any of the plans they've made."

"Oh, I know," her sister said. "I told him father was feeling much better and talking more often. The look on his face was priceless."

Hinata wanted to smile, but the thought of all the vultures circling around the compound wasn't helping. And despite her own plans and desires, they had one perfectly valid point: her family was long, long overdue for heirs, children to carry on the name. More importantly, children to keep the other families' ambitions in check when she and Hanabi were gone.

She already had a daughter in Haruka, even if it wasn't any kind of official link by any stretch of the imagination. Worse, Haruka referred to her as just Hinata, her dad's secret girlfriend, but she couldn't blame her. She'd only been able to sneak out for a few nights a week here and there, and hadn't been present for most of the landmark events that defined a childhood.

But Haruka wasn't a Hyuuga and would never be heir, so it was a moot point anyway.

"Something else is bothering me," Hanabi said, as they stopped at the edge of the pond. Fish surfaced and gaped, anticipating a feeding. "I know you're trying to get the seal changed, but I'm still not sure how you're going to do that. All the main families need to agree to it, don't they? Even the Hokage hasn't got any power to change our rules."

"No, the Hokage can't affect any of the clan's internal affairs. That law was set down at the founding of the village, or else I'm certain Sakura and Neji would have had children by now."

"Well, yes. But what would marrying the next Hokage do? I mean, assuming you even get the man you want, otherwise we're back in the same hole we started in."

"It's stupid and I hate it, Hanabi...but it's power over the entire village. The other families have a lot of vested interest in positions and laws they can use to protect their assets and whatever political pull they have."

"So you're hoping your husband will, what? Threaten to change those things to bring them on our side?"

"Sort of. It's not going to be pretty or easy."

Hinata sighed. There was going to be a lot of overt infighting in the days ahead, but it had to happen. And still, the most she could do at the moment was hope Sakura had been right about Lady Tsunade's decision...and hope Naruto learned to get past the block that was holding him back. She knew it had to be the Uchiha that plagued him, because what else could it be?

Naruto was notorious now, storied and famed, fast, powerful, and clearly skilled enough to play the role. He'd learned much of diplomacy, and Tsunade had been sending him alone to deal with the disputes that inevitably cropped up with their neighbors. And he was honest, and kind, and earnest in a way most people weren't, which was why she'd fallen in love with him in the first place.

Even so, at the moment the best she could do was wait for him to come home, and do her best to talk him through it. She hoped it would take less than the year she had.

"I think..," Hanabi said, but she was cut off by the small, amorphous creature that phased into existence on a stone lantern next to her.

The slug extended myopic eyestalks in Hanabi's direction, and then in Hinata's and back again. It decided Hanabi wasn't the one it wanted to talk to, and slithered in a half circle to face her straight on.

"Ahem, Hyuuga Hinata?"

"Yes?"

"Lady Tsunade needs to see you right away. She says there's an urgent assignment you need to attend to."

"I'll be there soon then. Thank you," she said, and bowed to the gastropod. It reared up and tipped its head, and then vanished again.

"That never stops being hilarious," Hanabi said. "Are you sure you should take this one? I mean, with father..."

Hinata nodded, and started walking towards her own quarters. She had to change and grab her gear still before she could report in, and if it was urgent, she wouldn't have much time.

"We are first of Konoha, aren't we?"

"I could go instead. I mean, if anything happens to you..."

Hinata stopped, and gave Hanabi a sweet and somewhat conspiratorial smile.

"In that case, the elders would look awfully silly if they sealed you. I'll stop taking missions the day he dies, Hanabi. No sooner."

"Take care, then," Hanabi said, and hugged her. "I'll talk to you when you get back."

She arrived at the Hokage's tower as quickly as she could, and was still fastening her pouch of medical gear around her waist as she made her way up the stairs two at a time. The guards outside Tsunade's office waved her in, and she nearly ran into Sakura as she went through the doors.

"There you are," Sakura said, "I was just going to go see if you'd arrived yet."

She apologized for the delay, which Tsunade pardoned with an inconsequential wave.

"The important thing is you're here," the Hokage said, pulling a pair of scrolls off the top of her desk. "You probably both know by now I assigned Neji and Shino on a mission this morning. The situation has complicated itself somewhat, and I'm sending the two of you to assist. Hinata, I realize your clan is not exactly stable at the moment and you are the heir..."

"No. Hanabi will be able to take care of things in my absence."

"Good, because I don't have any more combat medics at your level that I can spare. Simply put, I expect them to run into trouble."

Tsunade turned her eyes to Sakura, and her eyes were hard with the decision she'd made.

"I normally make it a point to keep couples separated on missions, but like I said, the two of you are the best I have available right now, and this is going to be nasty. I'm hoping you can handle working alongside Neji and still stay objective, Sakura."

Sakura shivered almost imperceptibly, but nodded anyway.

"It gets worse, in that regard, but we'll get to that in a moment. As you're no doubt aware, Sunagakure has been holding the chuunin exams this year. This morning, we received word that some of the teams returning home had gone missing. They were discovered dead about half-way between our borders, including Team Six under Itoh Mamoru. No survivors were reported."

Hinata felt a glare forming, and did nothing to stop it. Haruka was out there...Kiba was out there...and now Neji and Shino too. So many people she knew and loved were out in that wilderness, under threat, and there had already been casualties. She hazarded a glance at Sakura, and her normally gentle, loving eyes had become hard chits of metamorphic rock. Sakura made a fist, and the sound of her knuckles popping in her glove was the only sound in the room.

"Fifteen minutes ago, Shikamaru radioed in an update from the border post -- you know him, he's been going over the evidence since this morning. He says he is reasonably certain that our roving murderer is Uchiha Sasuke."

"What?"

Disbelief and shock coloured Sakura's voice, which died mid-word, and the hard determination she'd been building broke in a second. Hinata found herself taken aback, but...it had to be done. Tsunade gave them a look forged from steel.

"He didn't give me too many specifics, but I've never known Shikamaru to be wrong. You can ask him for the details when you get there. There's been no contact with the murderer, and no one who has engaged him has survived to tell us, so far as I know. For now, I have to assume that's who it is, which is why I have to send the best I have. That's you."

Sakura put her hands to her temples, and closed her eyes.

"I can't believe that he'd...even..."

"If you can't do it, Sakura, now is the time to tell me."

Hinata found her voice, small though it was.

"Sakura, I can..," she started, but Sakura cut her off.

"No. Neji's out there, and he's coming back with me." She breathed, and her eyes hardened again as she turned to show Hinata she was ready. "After all, we both know your cousin's going to do something dumb and get himself hurt, don't we?"

"Alright then," Tsunade said, and tossed them the two scrolls on the desk. "Take these, study them whenever you have a chance, show them to the team already in the field. Assuming it is Sasuke, we have to be ready for the worst and assume he's learned to use the mangekyou sharingan."

Just the word filled Hinata with apprehension and no small amount of dread. She'd seen the kind of devastation an Uchiha in full form could inflict, and there was an indiscriminate cruelty to the battlefield they'd found Naruto on when he'd ended the last of the Akatsuki.

"The Uchihas were just as secretive about their jutsu as your clan is, Hinata, so our information is incomplete, but that's everything we know. There are, we think, three major abilities associated with the mangekyou. One is an instant fire attack, black in colour, and very nearly unavoidable. One is an extremely powerful genjutsu, and we've seen evidence that it can completely neutralize even powerful ninja in an instant. We have no idea what the third is, only that it exists. It's likely that it may be related or even identical to the technique that Kakashi devised, but there's no guarantee of that; his sharingan is atypical.

"Looking into a sharingan user's eyes is not recommended. Any more questions?"

"No," Hinata said. Sakura echoed her.

"Then go. This ends, one way or another. They're counting on you."

...and so is Naruto, a small voice said in the back of her mind, even if he doesn't know it.


	4. 3: Team

Examination: Team

Kiba didn't wait to see what happened to the clone he'd left behind, and instead did his damnedest to put some distance between himself and the black pyre of what remained of his best defensive jutsu.

The clone probably wouldn't draw Sasuke's attention long. Even if the sharingan wasn't already capable of discerning between the real and the fake, Akamaru's absence would have been a strict tip-off, since he wasn't about to ask his dog to stick around when he was escaping himself.

So he ran, hard and fast, legs cutting shallow divots in the dust with every step, and at the same time forcing his breathing to slow enough that he could find his girls by scent. He didn't like the notion of possibly leading the Uchiha back toward them, but worse still was the thought of what would happen if his decoy attempt didn't work.

The girls were doing their best to hide in the grass, and they started to rise as he approached. He slowed only enough to get them moving again, and then the four of them were sprinting into the dusk together.

"What's the plan?" Haruka said, drawing in close. Kiyoka had a look of pain etched into her face -- he didn't think she'd ever lost so many of her bugs, and if the shock she felt was anything as bad as how he felt whenever Akamaru was inevitably injured, she was going to be quiet for some time.

"We are retreating the hell away from here," he said.

"I think I got that," she said, and coughed to catch her breath. "What else do we do?"

He didn't blame her. This was not exactly a tactical withdrawal, this was getting the hell out asap, and they'd never been in this position before.

"I can lay down some genjutsu," Nanami offered, "Maybe throw this guy off."

"Save your stamina. It won't work on him anyway. Remember how I said people died? Well, that was him, and he's way above us."

Akamaru barked and howled in warning, a mere second before the plain erupted in fire, a wall of orange flame stretching across their escape. Drawn in stark, wraith-black contrast to the conflagration behind him, Sasuke stood against that smoking curtain, waiting. Confusion and fear rose from his team, and Kiba felt his stomach fall.

"How did..?"

"Sorry, girls. Looks like we're not quite fast enough."

"Fast enough to keep us chasing you longer than necessary," said a new voice, and Kiba wasn't sure if he was pleased or dismayed that there were more people in this trap he'd stumbled into. Ino tapped him on the elbow, to let him know she was there without making him turn to find her, and he could feel the scuffle of her arriving team pulling up and joining his.

Sasuke stood still as Akamaru paced back and forth protectively in front of their group, evaluating them with a cold, clinical detachment.

"I saw the mess you left back there, and...holy shit. Is that who I think it is?"

"Yeah," Kiba said, and his mouth was dry as he spit into the grass. "Yeah, that's him."

Ino bit off a curse.

"We ran into one of his clones earlier...I guess he was trying to do two things at once."

"Well, he's got us now. There's no direct route to safety at this point. I was hoping to tie him up long enough for my team to get away, but I don't think that's possible any more."

His team was whispering with Ino's, sharing information, trying to figure out among them what was going on.

"The only way out is through, then," she said, "How do you like fighting dirty?"

"Whenever possible."

She leaned in, and spoke as low as possible.

"If you can hold him still for a bit, I can..."

"Absolutely not," Kiba said, and gave her a dark look. He couldn't sanction that. "Not in the open, not with him watching. It's too risky."

"I don't see we have a choice. We have nine including Akamaru, Kiba, and even if I miss, I think you can hold him for three minutes. That's all we need."

"Ino..."

He hated it. He was sure it was the worst plan he'd ever heard in the entire course of his career, but at the same time it was probably the only one that could possibly work.

"He'll just wear us down, Kiba. His _clone_ gave me a pretty good run for my money, and I'm pretty sure you wouldn't be running if you thought you could take him."

Kiba snorted, and the dust in his mouth cracked as he ground his teeth. Sasuke hadn't moved yet, letting this drag on as ash billowed into the sky and blotted out the first stars.

"Three minutes, huh?"

She turned to look at him, and her face was calm despite the growing caution in those pretty ice-blue eyes.

"Kiba, I trust you. I trust my team, and I trust yours. I know you can do this. It might be the only shot we've got."

He didn't like it, but she was right. The best he could come up with guaranteed at least half of them would die -- and while this was pretty much an all-or-nothing deal, there was at least a chance they'd all make it. This was his family, his team, his pack, and damned if he'd let himself die before they were safe, S-class criminals or not. And hell, it'd be a shame to let down his favorite drinking buddy.

"Alright," he said, and snapped his fingers just loudly enough to draw his team's attention. Sasuke drew his sword in anticipation. "Kiyoka, you're on area suppression and detection. Nanami, you're going to stick with Ino-sensei. Keep close to her at all times, attack when she attacks, pull back when she pulls back. Haruka, you're long-range support, take your opportunities, but no risks and do not for the love of all that is holy...do not close your range."

"Dai, Takeshi, you're with me," Ino said in turn. "Be prepared for plan nine, watch for it. Hideo, you're with Uzumaki there. Like he said, stay the hell away."

There was no go signal, no countdown, no prompting, and Kiba was glad for the practiced efficiency of both teams as he split himself into four and surged towards the Uchiha in a terrible quartet of wailing tornadoes. Sasuke finally moved, only to be met here by a barrage of shuriken, and there by falling kunai, and he danced between them as though oblivious to the danger they presented.

Even as the dust rose in the bowl of hell his clones were stirring up, he ran on foot, kunai in one hand and tucking one of the cinnabar energy pills into his cheek. He had a feeling he was going to need it soon.

There was a squelch in the dust before him, suggesting Ino had somehow managed to muddy the ground ahead and Sasuke was just beginning to notice, and then he was in the cloud. His eyes and ears were nearly useless in the chaos, blinded by the choking grey dust and the rising gale of his clones, but his nose still worked perfectly.

His instincts clicked and he lashed out, blind but aware, and this time his blade was the one barely parried, inches from Sasuke's face. He let his momentum carry him, his left arm hooking around behind his opponent's ribs with a satisfyingly meaty thump, and his follow-through flung Sasuke face-first into the small mud patch.

To no avail, though, because Sasuke had turned on an elbow, landed on his feet and lunged forward again, forcing Kiba to duck down and away. Still, the look on his face had almost been worth it.

Kiba slid to his left, away from the tip of the sword that threatened to gut him, and his own block was painful and awkward but he twisted his hip against it, and stabbed at Sasuke's face, palm open and claws out.

Another near miss, and the animal in him groaned with disappointment and thirsted for blood. He remembered the dead Itoh's determination and effort, the first time he'd dragged the poor kid out to the bar after he'd joined the teaching jounin. It was hard to believe he was dead, but he was, and he fed his animal the outrage and let the fire rise in him. The thought of Itoh's team, empty-eyed and staring up at the savannah sky multiplied it tenfold.

Time slowed in the dust storm even though every strike and counter fell faster than the one before it, a flurry of exchanges beyond his ability to keep score. He fell into the flow, the vicious rabid rage. His muscles ached but he felt nothing more than a comfortable numbness. His heart pounded, no louder than a murmur. His chest burned, no warmer than a candle.

He snarled, fangs bared, and snapped at the hand Sasuke had carelessly left dangling by his face after the last block, the smallest fingers just brushing against the wet enamel of his teeth. The click of his canines echoed with the percussive riot of Akamaru's jaws as he dodged in and out of the dust, harrying their shared prey in moments of inattention.

Shuriken and kunai rained down around them, and muddy hands groped and reached for Sasuke's feet, all vying for his focus while Kiba held him at bay. For a fleeting, microscopic second, Sasuke seemed almost off balance, perched on one foot to avoid the clutching mud and warning off Akamaru with a backhand recovery. The bloodlust took him, and Kiba lunged from all fours, fangs out and claws bared.

Kiba landed inside the circle of Sasuke's arms, wrapping his own around his ribcage and burying his nails in his back. His fangs dug into the base of Sasuke's neck around his windpipe, and Kiba pulled. Flesh tore, blood sprayed, and then nothing but the taste of ashes and decay as he spit out the remains of a burnt out stump.

There was a new scent on the wind, forty meters to the south-east where Kiyoka's bugs were madly spraying a rotten-cabbage warning pheromone into the air. Without thinking, he turned, spun, and his gatsuuga shot from the occluding cloud with a ballistic inerrancy, trailing smoke in the whirlwind of turbulence behind him, almost landing on top of Sasuke's new position.

"Cheh," Sasuke said.

"What's the matter?" Kiba said, taunting. "Had enough of me already?"

It was empty bravado, but if it gave him a moment to breathe, that was great, and if it gave all the genin that little boost to give everything they had and everything they didn't know they had yet...well, it was worth it.

Ino's voice whispered close to his ear before she and the kids following her darted away to a new position.

"Remember, you have to keep him still for this to work, Kiba."

He sniffed, wiping sweat and dirt away from below his eye. She wasn't trying to be snide or insulting, he knew, and it was an apt reminder not to let himself get too carried away.

"Yeah, I know. I'm trying. Three moves, promise."

He wasn't too sure if he'd be able to collect on that, but an idea had come to him, and it was genius, if he thought so himself. It would require a hell of a lot of effort and coordination, but if Akamaru was up to it, so was he.

He sent out the clones again -- the dust seemed to work, limiting just how how much warning the sharingan could give -- and this time he threw up a thick wall of clay behind his target so he couldn't escape. The gatsuuga was such an old technique of his by then, but it was effective, and fast, and if it ever hit it was guaranteed to really mess a person up. He locked onto Sasuke's scent and flew in amid a new flurry of attacks from the genin.

He crashed through the wall of packed dirt as though it weren't there, Akamaru's own gatsuuga a millisecond behind him, and they looped around again. Just to his left, Sasuke had pulled out his chidori and knocked away enough of the wall with his lightning to dodge.

"Dammit!" he shouted, and he tossed out even more hand signs, drawing up more chakra than before, and summoned the Gates of Rashomon again. How they came to be, or how they repaired themselves he didn't know or care, but now they stood tall behind Sasuke.

He and Akamaru both launched into the gatsuuga at the same time.

They were close, extremely close, considering the gatsuuga's near-instantaneous acceleration. Sasuke still moved aside with contemptuous ease, this time intending to let Kiba smash himself against the Gate.

But Kiba was still locked onto his scent.

Sasuke had exactly zero time to react when Akamaru crashed into Kiba, annulling most of his rotational energy and slamming him with ungodly force sideways, straight into Sasuke.

Kiba braced despite the incredible, explosive pain in his ribs and the gashes Akamaru had unintentionally left across his hips, and the crunch of his right elbow and then his left knee colliding with the side of Sasuke's head as he spun was perhaps the sweetest sound in the world.

He struck the gate himself with so much force his vision grayed out and he was thankful he'd landed on his back rather than his head. As he melted off the smooth, diamond-hard surface of the Gate's doors, he noticed that Sasuke was still standing.

He'd dropped his sword, though. Sasuke staggered two steps, hand moving to the blood oozing from the side of his temple, and Kiba struggled to his feet, his legs jelly and his knee on fire. Akamaru stumbled over, tripping on his paws, but he managed to get a weak grip on one of Sasuke's thighs as a pair of muddy hands wrapped around his ankles.

Kiba found something that looked kind of like his sense of balance and picked it up anyway even though his fingers weren't responding yet, and wrapped his arms around Sasuke from behind, holding his arms up and safely away in a full body lock.

"Do...do it, fuck!" he screamed, his voice raw and he could feel blood spray with the spittle. "Do it now!"

Ino finished the hand signs, a long sequence miles away more complicated than the last time he'd seen her possess someone, and her body crumpled into the waiting arms of her students.

Sasuke struggled slightly in his grip, still disoriented, and Kiba felt the first flushes of victory, and then wracking pain as thousands of volts arced through his body. He convulsed, helpless, and Akamaru yelped and let go, his mouth burning.

"Ino?" he said when his vision cleared, still half hoping.

"No," came the cold reply.

OoOoOoO

Trees flashed by, branches reduced to a flickering cinema of shadows against the setting sun, and Neji jumped from bough to bough without any visible effort. Shino followed close behind, and they covered ground at a prodigious pace as they wound their way through the familiar depths of the forest that dominated the southern part of Ho no Kuni.

They hadn't stopped once since they'd passed through the village's main gates earlier that morning, and he was wired with the pre-emptive rush and whatever they put in those energy pills to keep a man running far longer than he was ever meant to.

Shino had gone through about twice as many, as his bugs apparently got a little excited and chewed a little more than their share of chakra if he was forced to carry on as they had. If it caused his partner any discomfort, he didn't show it, and Neji supposed that if Shino wasn't complaining there was probably no need for him to worry.

On the other hand, he was getting tired, and he had to fend off the occasional yawn while willing the lead from his limbs.

As much as he hated being torn from his plans with Sakura, he had to admit this was terribly important and Shikamaru had been right to request urgent and immediate assistance. What had happened to those teams was not only a tragedy -- even genin were hard to replace -- but it was an affront as well, and whatever coward had decided to take up picking off the young and the weak deserved whatever punishment Neji could devise.

"Shikamaru is waiting for us," Shino said, abrupt as he usually was. "Sabaku no Temari is also in attendance."

"Understood."

Neji was in some small way jealous of just how far Shino's awareness could reach, communicated along a chain of small, inconspicuous insects. Still, the further out he sent them, the longer the delay. A message originated ten kilometers distant could take as long as six minutes to get back to him, so while extremely long distance scouting was possible, it was also problematic. A distance of one kilometer translated to a delay of about thirty-six seconds, and Neji's instantaneous ability was better under those conditions.

Still, they were both used to scouting duties and between them they could probably cover a fair amount of ground in this search.

When they arrived at the border outpost not long after, it was Temari who greeted them because Shikamaru was still ambling to the gates, unhurried as usual with an empty mission pack in one hand and a bunch of stuff under the other arm.

"Welcome to the desert," she said. "I'd like to get going as soon as we can, but this bum here is going to tell you what he's figured out so far since he's not ready to go yet."

Shikamaru scratched his forehead and blinked, then put his pack down and resumed tossing things into it.

"Yeah, right," he said, and then began explaining what they'd found at the kill sites and how the pieces fit together. How Shikamaru had ultimately made the connection to hair and eye color he could never guess, but Neji had learned not to question his inspirations.

"Basically," Shikamaru said, fiddling with the straps of his bag and double checking for his essentials, "it came down to those two things.

"Color is usually a hereditary thing, except in a few weird cases of mutation like your wife," he continued, shrugging at Neji's cautioning look. "So if our murderer is discriminating based on hair, he's looking for a genin whose ancestry he probably knows, because he can discard most of the people he meets based on that criteria. He's looking for black hair, or at least dark hair, and that's a dominant trait, so he can be assured that whatever genin he's looking for is going to have that colour.

"Almost the same with the eyes. He checks the hair first, and then immediately eliminates the genin with the wrong eye color. Again, looking for dark eyes, another dominant trait. But as we well know..," and here, he gave Neji a significant glance, "...the eyes can carry some pretty powerful built-in weaponry.

"So why test genin, and here of all places?" he said, and ticked off his index finger. "First, it implies that he has a rough idea when and where his target was born, or else he'd have to find a way to cover the northern borders up to Iwagakure and those guys. So, the child was born somewhere in the east, and not Sunagakure itself."

Shikamaru yawned into his hand, and then ticked off the next finger.

"Next, and probably most important, he's looking for genin that have had some experience, and they've just gone through the toughest ordeal of their careers to date, in most cases. So he's expecting something to have changed during the exams -- or else why not intercept them en route before the exams started?"

"On top of that, he's being very thorough about checking the eyes. All the dark-haired murdered genin, the ones he tested, all had bruising on the face, on their cheeks and foreheads. He's taking a very good look, so chances are good he's looking for an eye-related bloodline."

He stopped, and turned his pack over to hoist it onto his back with an exaggerated grunt, and Neji felt a restless urge rising in him. Shikamaru clearly wasn't done with his explanation, but he was taking his damn time.

Apparently thinking the same thing, Temari thumped Shikamaru on the head, and while he complained about it under his voice, she took over.

"Long story short: this lazy jerk and I did a bunch of work on sorting out visas for travel through both our countries for this exam, so we had access to the complete list of examinees. There are only two students this year from any clan or family in the east known to have eye-based techniques, but both families are generally known to have coloured hair or eyes different than what this guy is looking for. There's more to it but this is going on long enough as it is. So, the conclusion is that whoever our murderer was had to be looking for an orphan from a dead clan."

Shikamaru sniffed, rubbed his nose and finished.

"Basically, it's like this: there's only one recently dead clan around here with any surviving members old enough to sire a child in this age group..."

Neji and Shino came to the conclusion at the same time.

"Uchiha Sasuke."

"You got it," Shikamaru said. "Someone's managed to misplace an heir. Given that this person is looking for the child, they don't really know where that child ended up after birth. And since no one outside of the higher echelons of our village could possibly know the Uchiha was still alive or where he went to since he was officially reported as dead after that fight with his brother, I doubt anyone else could be our culprit. I want to head back towards the kill sites, because chances are good he's still skulking around there waiting for more teams to come back."

"Just as a precaution," Temari said, "we've redirected traffic to the south for now."

Neji shrugged, and Shino nodded in assent. It seemed a good enough plan, and he didn't have any better ideas.

To be honest, in that moment he wasn't exactly thinking about the tactical ramifications. Temari and Shikamaru led the way down the slope into the valley, and while he kept his guard up, he couldn't help but wonder how this news would affect Sakura.

Assuming they could find Sasuke, and defeat him. He had no doubt they could accomplish the later, although just how decisively remained to be seen. The sharingan was powerful and dangerous, and once upon a time he'd wanted to see how he and his personal mastery of the byakugan stacked up as a foolish point of pride.

But there were bigger things at stake now.

"How is it," Temari said, "that you've let a missing-nin go for over...how long has it been? Twenty years?"

"Almost," Shino said.

"That's a hell of a long time for a rogue ninja to be on the loose. Is he really that good, or do you guys just not care?"

"He killed his brother, supposedly," Shikamaru said, "although there weren't any witnesses besides another Akatsuki member."

"Other than that he has been largely benign," Neji said, in a sincere attempt to defend his village. "There were other priorities at the time, and it is hard to find someone who is not actively drawing attention to themselves. That has changed."

"I'll say it did, he's back in grand style."

Which was true. No one had heard anything about Sasuke since the Akatsuki had collapsed...he'd simply vanished. And because he was just a deserter and not really a criminal, ANBU and its hunter-nin had devoted precious little effort to uncovering him. There were other targets more intent on fomenting rebellion, murder, theft, and an endless list of other crimes.

But for whatever reason, the prodigal was back, and as Temari had said, he'd spent the last of his credit with Konohagakure and the rest of the ninja world. Kumogakure and Otogakure would be yowling for blood or repercussions soon, seeking vengeance for their dead. Tsunade would need a head to show them, and that was now his duty.

He still felt profoundly sorry for Sakura. Her image sprang to mind, curled up in pain and mourning, and it hurt him. He'd rarely seen her truly upset, and she was generally cheerful enough to make the very notion seem alien and unlike her. She got angry rather than succumb to tears in most cases, a far cry from her younger days, but he worried. She treated sorrow in the same way as all her other emotions, and that was in the extreme.

Even putting aside the old, emotional wounds she was bound to have that he would not understand, at the very least he understood the significance of being a part of a team. It had taken him more time than it should have, but there was an understanding and an unspoken bond that formed between any group of people that fought, and lived, and even died together the way a cell did.

More than he would admit, he missed working alongside his old team mates -- they'd stayed in the ANBU when he'd left -- Lee with his dependable enthusiasm, Ten Ten with her motherly caution, and the way the three of them could tear through opposition without speaking or even signaling each other.

And for all the grief he'd put Lee through, and for all the ridiculous garbage Lee had spouted back at him, they'd been the only family he'd been able to turn to when he'd been at his worst. The first people who could see past his juuin and the anger that had consumed him, and were patient and tolerant enough to put up with it.

He was fortunate...no, he corrected himself, Sakura was unfortunate to have acquired and then lost a teammate even stupider than himself.

They stopped somewhere in the darkness, and the thin, gnarled branches of a copse of trees formed a flimsy roof against the dim light of the moon. Shikamaru and Temari took first watch, as they'd had the opportunity to sleep during the day, and there was a low buzz as Shino let fly a small cloud of his sleepless, ever vigilant beetles.

The wasteland was cold at night, bitten by desert winds with the same intensity as it was baked by the sun during the day.

Neji unfurled his blanket and wrapped it around himself, hoping he'd be there to comfort her when Sakura found out they'd had to kill the Uchiha.

OoOoOoO

Hinata had not heard a word from Sakura since they had left the village behind.

They were taking a short rest, about as much of a stop as they could afford, considering that they were hours behind the team they were meant to reinforce. It also gave them a chance to review the scrolls Tsunade had given them, and Hinata had already skimmed through hers, abusing the byakugan to read it three lines at a time without completely unrolling it.

"That's...that's good to know," she said, and while it was the breeze that made her shiver, she was fairly sure her new knowledge was perfectly capable of provoking the same reaction. "Even so...I'm not sure I feel ready."

Sakura looked up, distracted.

"Yeah," she said. "I suppose this is good to know, assuming it is him."

"I've never known Shikamaru to be wrong," Hinata said, and Sakura flinched visibly.

"No. No, he usually isn't, Hinata, but I still can't...believe it. Sasuke might be a lot of things, but he isn't a monster. And Shikamaru doesn't really know it's him. Maybe it makes sense, logically, but no one's seen him yet."

In a way, Hinata also wished she was right.

"I just want everyone home safely," she said, and she could see their faces swimming among the shards of her memory. Kiba and Akamaru tossing each other around a field, teeth grinning and tongues wagging; Haruka trying and failing again and again to set a log on fire until she got it and passed out; Neji with his tutorial patronizing as they traded blows in the courtyard; Shino and the stoic silence that bespoke a supreme confidence. She needed to see them again.

And if they risked their lives on a regular basis, it wasn't every day she knew what they were up against, and it wasn't every day that it was anywhere near this bad.

"Me too," Sakura said. "We'll see them, soon. They'll come back, they have to come back."

Sakura flicked the cap off her water bottle and drank, but she was slow about it and hesitant in her movements.

"Sakura...what if it is him? What will you do?"

"If it is..," she said, barely a murmur, and she looked away, eyes drifting into the forest, "...I want answers. If he's done all this, I want to know why. Even if there is no reason good enough."

"You know we'll probably have to fight him." Hinata gave her scroll a little wave. "And all this. We might not be able to find Neji and the others before we find him."

She hated what she was saying, because it wasn't like her to doubt those around her, especially not a friend, and especially not one as old and as good as Sakura was.

"I just...I need to know you'll be there for me. I won't be able to do this myself."

She looked back, and Hinata caught just the barest sliver of a sullen anger peeking out from behind her melancholy, a glowering ember in a gray morass.

"You won't have to," Sakura said. "If it's not him, then that's no problem. And if it is...then he'll have to go through me."

"That...that means a lot to me."

Sakura sighed, and there was injury on her breath.

"I...haven't ever told anyone this," she said, the hurt leaking into her tone, "and I'll never say it again, Hinata, so don't tell Naruto, please. I've...never actually forgiven Sasuke for what he did to us. I know it's not healthy...but I can't."

"It's safe with me, I promise."

"No matter what, he isn't getting away again. Not from me. Come on, we should get going. We're still far away."

Sakura stood and brushed herself off, tucking her bottle back into its strap. She made some seals and touched her eyes, invoking the basic night-vision jutsu everyone learned in the academy. Hinata didn't bother, merely leaving her byakugan active, already used to navigating in the ghost world of outlines and grey scale it provided her.

In all but the worst case scenario, she knew Kiba, Shino, and Neji would survive somehow. They were competent and tough, and had always been. She worried most for Haruka, who was still young to her job, a work in progress, and still vulnerable. It did not help her peace of mind to know that it was specifically genin cells that were being hunted down and destroyed.

The cascade of questions and fear was endless, and though she tried not to dwell on them as she followed the sparking golden glow of Sakura's chakra through the forest, she couldn't avoid them.

As much as she loved Haruka, and as much as she knew Sakura did as well, there was still only one person who could rightfully claim to love her most, and that was, without a doubt, Naruto himself.

She remembered well the day the girl had come shrieking into their lives. Naruto had run into her near the hospital -- she'd been visiting Hanabi, who'd gotten careless -- and he'd recruited her right away to help with some kind of medical emergency. She'd been confused and flustered but had followed him anyway, until they'd run into Neji with the baby in his arms.

Unlike everything else Naruto had ever done in his life, his decision to adopt Haruka was not done on impulse. She remembered meeting him the second time, again at the hospital, and again after she'd been to see Hanabi. Dark circles had ringed his eyes, and he'd still been wearing the same clothes he had the day before. She hadn't even been sure he'd seen her and her shy little wave until he stopped in front of her and asked her point-blank if she thought he'd make a good father.

She remembered stammering out that of course he would, and listed off all the things that she very secretly loved about him. She remembered, and it would be criminal to forget, the smile that had gradually crept across his face before he'd clapped her on the shoulder, thanked her, and stormed into the maternity ward to demand custody.

She'd had to tell him it didn't work that way, that there was paperwork to fill out and people to talk to, and he'd been confused and frustrated by all the bureaucracy until such time as he actually pulled it off a week and a half later.

The rest was history.

Naruto had proved her blind faith well-placed, and he'd justified it every day he spent with his daughter. He'd weathered the scrutiny placed on him with good cheer and she doubted there was another girl in the village who'd had a better upbringing.

At the same time, she'd made good on her promise to help, filling in during his absences, teaching the girl how to be one, and making sure that she was being fed more than just instant noodles.

Hyuuga Hinata, heir to unfathomable wealth and status, and kunoichi of a noble clan, was kissed for the first time in the hallway of a small apartment while she was carrying soup to a sick little orphan girl.

But the Uchiha had always been there, lingering unseen in the background, and she knew he still dreamed of finding him and mending him, rehabilitating him so they could be brothers once more.

It was a consuming obsession, and she was secretly, selfishly ecstatic that Naruto and Haruka had been brought together -- Haruka was an anchor, holding him back from the promise that he held dearest, holding him in a safe harbor. Keeping him in Hinata's reach, keeping him close to her.

She knew she was guilty...guilty of using him, guilty of hoping he'd bring deliverance for her and her clan. She loved him, truly she did, but she needed him too, needed him for a mercenary purpose. She would have given anything for a simple romance, for the innocent dreams of the girl she'd once been...but she didn't have that option any more.

She had her own reasons to prevent the Uchiha from escaping. She needed to cut him out of the world, eviscerate Naruto's dream so her own would have a chance to flower. She'd been granted this opportunity, and as much as she despised herself in that moment for feeling the way she did, so too did she revel in it.

Nothing good could come of this, she knew. There were no possible outcomes between Naruto losing a brother, losing a daughter, or both.

"Sakura?"

"Mm?"

"I was just thinking...Naruto would have wanted to be here."

"I know," she said, sliding across the top of another wide branch before launching into another leap. "I'm not looking forward to telling him."

"I was thinking the same," she said, wanting to let it all spill out, to confess and be forgiven for her selfish desires, but she didn't. "I hope he can forgive me."

I hope you can forgive me too, she wanted say.

Sakura's short burst of laughter was bitter and hard, an ugly, animalistic sound in the darkness.

"I wouldn't worry about that," she said. "He won't blame you. Especially not you."

"He'll blame himself, too. He still does...and I can't bear to see him like that."

"...so do I, Hinata. Sometimes."

"Why? You didn't...neither of you ever did anything to..."

Hinata leaned to one side to avoid a low-hanging branch, and just caught the end of a short shake of Sakura's head.

"I wish it were that easy. We loved him, you know. In different ways, but whatever. You find excuses, you find reasons. Little things you did, or didn't do, or that you think you should have done. If only we'd tried harder, if only we'd said this, or..."

Hinata found a point of reference, buried in her memories. She'd done all manner of things to win back affection, or even just to have her presence acknowledged in her own house. How often she tried to get people to look at her as something other than weak, despite the seemingly insurmountable hopelessness that had taken up residence in her heart. How pathetic she must have seemed, railing against a system that expected perfection from the word go.

She knew better, now. People changed but slowly, and they had to be willing. She was lucky Neji had found himself, lucky that Hanabi had listened to her and seen her way.

"I understand," she said. "It stays with you, doesn't it? And it eats away until you can let it go."

"It does," Sakura said, and she fell silent again.

Hinata didn't say any more.

OoOoOoO

Ino knew she'd failed the instant her mind separated from her body.

In the fraction of a second between the time she'd finished the last hand seal and the sweeping darkness that threw itself around her every time she used a possession technique, she'd glimpsed the aura of burning lightning enveloping her target and realized to her horror that there was no way it was going to connect.

And it was all her fault.

She'd wasted all of Kiba's effort and now she was probably going to die.

In the slow, ethereal darkness of what she'd come to know as limbo, she had all the time in the world to reflect upon her mistake, and she couldn't help but to dwell upon it. It was a just punishment, assuming there wasn't an afterlife in which she could continue to castigate herself for all eternity.

She'd gotten greedy.

There were two total possession techniques that she'd learned. One, the most basic, could be triggered with a single, rapid seal. With it, she could occupy a target's body, force them to do whatever she chose. It was a heady rush, an unparalleled power trip, but it had its drawbacks. If her host was injured, so too would she be.

The second technique was much more involved, more sophisticated, more baroque in its complexity, but the time, effort, and chakra that went into it paid off with profound consequences: injuries were not transferred. She could act with impunity, even forcing a person to inflict fatal wounds upon themselves at no risk to herself.

An assassination technique, and one she rarely used both because she rarely had the time or the security to use it.

She'd gambled. She'd lost.

The temptation, though! Kiba had done such a brilliant job, she'd not seen it coming, hadn't realized just how disoriented Sasuke had become until Kiba had him completely locked down. She'd known she had all the time in the world, all the time to guarantee victory, to put down the errant Uchiha for good, to make certain they'd all escape.

She'd delayed just a little too long.

That infinitesimal flash of electric blue prophesied death for them all, and she wished she could tell them all that she was sorry. Sorry she'd left Kiba in the lurch, injured and desperate, trying to protect six genin, a big dog, and her own immobile ass. Sorry she'd left her team and his in the lurch. Sorry she'd squandered their faith in her.

But despite that, despite all the evidence to the contrary, she still had faith in them. She'd trained her team and knew they were excellent, Kiba's was impressive...and Kiba had never, ever, let anyone down. He wasn't a genius, he wasn't the strongest, or the most determined, or the bravest, even. He was reliable, and that was good enough.

While she was quite literally out of her head, there was really nothing she could do. It was like swimming, like diving into the lake and letting yourself sink beneath the surface, falling into the cold, weightless void of the water.

She had three minutes, like holding a long, suffocated breath. She could drown in here, in this emptiness, lost forever in the space between souls and the bodies that anchored them to the corporeal world. She could feel the pull of her body, groping in the dark, a sightless drooling imbecile, knowing it had lost something but not knowing what.

Her momentum diminished, if it could be called that, and she began her agonizingly slow return. At least her body still lived, though she could say nothing of those waiting for her.

Around her strobed the minds of the others. She was too far to touch, to know what they thought, but what they felt bled into limbo. There was panic and fear, cold condescension, and hell-bitten fury. They stormed in and out of her awareness, swirling past as they maneuvered around each other, and every now and again the chaos was punctured by pain.

She was so close now, so close to herself, impotently wishing the process was faster as she struggled her way home...and found it.

Coming back was always disorienting. Jagged shards of sensation clashed, colours mixed and sounds echoed as her brain fought to reconcile its environment with its owner, and under these conditions it was a harrowing experience.

Pain blossomed through her as she rolled across the grass; she realized she'd been kicked. And then, as she turned over and her eyes blinked and refocused on the long, shining blade lifting out of the dirt only a foot or two away, she realized she'd been saved. Her hearing finally resolved as she was picking herself up and trying to make her fingers work again, and she could hear Kiba shouting and an irregular clicking in the background.

He was cursing and taunting, both at once, doing what he did best: being an irritating as hell son of a bitch.

"...cking smells, huh? Can't fool the nose, can you?"

He was weaving around, turning this way and that, head bobbing erratically with every pronounced sniff. He was blind or at least unable to trust his sight, but still fighting, and there was a glazed, uncoordinated look in his eyes.

She hauled herself up onto her hands and knees, and she recognized the friendly hands of her boys helping her upright. Nanami flickered into her field of view, laid her palms on Kiba's back and tried to dispel the illusion placed on him -- twice, unsuccessfully, since it was too much for her. He was bleeding profusely, she noticed, his jacket torn, where he'd been slashed twice, and his clothes glistened down to his knees in the firelight.

He had other injuries too, she noticed, a gash across his left forearm and burns across his right shoulder where the sleeve had gone missing.

Ino's eyes finally came into full focus, and she found the source of the mysterious clicking at the same time it stopped; Akamaru was jumping and dodging through the grass, a snake in his jaws. He shook his head hard, snapping its neck as he lashed it through the air before darting in to try again with another of the dozens that pursued him.

Her feet wouldn't respond fast enough, and Kiba spoke again before she could stop him and tell him to wait.

"Gotcha," Kiba said after a sniff, and cracked his neck.

It must have been the first time in minutes, because there was a hungry gleam boiling in eyes. He hunched down and his torso flexed, wringing more blood from his wounds, and the gatsuuga made itself heard again.

She shouted a warning, but it was too late and it was lost in the sound of the wind anyway.

Downrange, Sasuke took two steps forward, uninjured besides the trickle of blood making its way down his face and the slight limp in one leg, and he watched as Kiba sailed harmlessly past. There was something calculating in the way his red eyes shifted away from the howling storm of the gatsuuga and settled on a point not far from where Kiba had started.

Her blood went cold.

Kiba came out of his final spin to find Sasuke waiting for him, sword drawn. He didn't have to stab or slash, he just stood, bracing the sword against Kiba's landing, and Ino shrieked as it carved a long spiral up the length of his entire body.

He crumpled into the ground, silent.

Akamaru smashed a snake into the ground and howled, and she saw more snakes rear up in the grass, keeping him away from his master.

The shock drove strength back into her limbs. She moved on reflex, lashing out with a left-handed brace of shuriken as her right pulled a kunai into a backhand grip and she lunged.

Sasuke spun away from the shuriken and pushed her attack to the side, shrugging her off. Blood -- Kiba's blood -- showered off his sword as her weapon glided along its edge. Not to be denied, she slipped forward and kicked.

She didn't miss, either, but the floating sensation of her foot pushing through air where Sasuke's head appeared to be was an immense frustration.

"Shit," she said, teeth grinding together, and she forced a purge of her chakra. Already she was being harassed with illusions, and from the apparently haphazard pattern of the genin's attacks, she wasn't the only one.

"Takeshi! See to those cuts!"

He wasn't doing much good wasting energy on fruitless attacks anyway, and she took up a position just ahead of his body. If Sasuke wanted to finish him, he'd have to go through her. Kiba had earned at least that much.

She found Sasuke at standoff distance, at least, what she presumed was him, and just to be sure she purged herself again. You just stay there, she thought, pulling another two kunai. She wrapped them in chakra, and she knew the seals she was making betrayed her, but she threw them anyway.

Kiba had shown him unyielding defiance and she was not going to do any less.

As the kunai angled in on him, Sasuke moved a little at first, and then more he realized they were changing course to converge on him. Ino grinned; surprise widened his eyes a little when a near miss cut through more than just his sleeve. Just a nick, but a good start. If nothing else, it meant maybe his insight wasn't quite as good as she'd assumed. Maybe he was still reeling from the hit he'd taken. Maybe he didn't realize she'd learned to play a little with the wind and not just the water.

It was still hard trying to do this without looking at him, trying to avoid looking into his eyes.

He put some distance between himself and the pursuing kunai, and then wasted all three with a single fireball in spectacularly efficient fashion, stripping them of her chakra and dropping them lifeless to the ground.

But he was closer now. She cleared herself a third time just to be sure she wasn't chasing a ghost, and attacked. A graze...just a graze, but the point of kunai slipped across the top of Sasuke's back before he'd quite realized she was there, or even that fast. He turned to meet her, sword rushing up from below, and she blocked it.

Her palm lashed out at shoulder-height, her nails a foundation for the blades of wind that sprang from them, and she raked them through his face. Skin split, bone splintered, and deep lacerations fissured through him where she cut.

A wry smile sprang to her lips, and she knew she'd been had.

She knew partly because the clone faded into a cloud of dust, partly because she was suddenly aware of Sasuke's presence behind her, and partly because of the two and a half feet of hardened steel that protruded clear through her stomach and the surge of electricity that swept her mind clear of anything but unrelenting agony.

She wasn't sure what to think as she staggered and listened to the echoes of her scream. Sasuke pulled his sword free, and a second wave of pain lanced through her. She fell first to her knees, wondering why landing in the gravel didn't hurt as much as it should have. She wondered if she was bleeding internally, because there wasn't nearly as much blood as she thought there should have been. And then she tipped over and rolled.

Somehow, Kiba was still conscious, and she met his eyes as Sasuke stepped over her and advanced on Takeshi, who'd still been trying to stop him from bleeding.

"I'm sorry," she mouthed, only to realize he was trying to say the same.

Takeshi was frozen, torn between staying with Kiba and running for his life, and Sasuke reached down and lifted him by the face as though he was only so much garbage.

She couldn't watch.

She heard Takeshi cry out and _run_, amid the crackle of flames, and she forced her eyes open again. There was fire, new fire raining down on the Uchiha, short bursts of it. Sasuke dodged and then somehow moved directly into the next flaming hailstone and winced for the first time as it exploded against his chest.

"Get away from them!"

Haruka ran between Sasuke and Kiba, punctuating her words with quick, vehement thrusts of her kunai. For some reason, Sasuke just wasn't dodging as well as he should have been, and Ino found herself puzzled.

Sasuke moved aside just one more time, and then he dropped his sword and wrapped both hands around Haruka's neck, lifting her. Impossibly, Kiba's hand closed around a fallen kunai and with a last desperate burst, he stabbed at Sasuke's foot.

Sasuke avoided it without even looking. He seemed frozen, staring at Haruka as she kicked at him, cursing him to hell and back again, but Ino's eyes were locked on Kiba's hand, ever defiant with his middle finger raised in a salute of hatred until he lost consciousness.

If he could do it, so could she.

Despite the pain, she wrenched her left arm out from under her useless body, pressed her thumbs to her forefingers, and let her mind fly.

There was a fleeting moment of uncertainty as she drifted through limbo, and then she felt the connection form. She stared down, sharing Sasuke's sight, and dropped Haruka out of shock.

Haruka's irises, black since before the first day Sakura had asked her to baby-sit, had become a vibrant crimson, and there were a handful of black points flying circles around her pupils. Somewhere behind the brick wall she'd slammed down between herself and Sasuke's mind, she could hear incredible, endless screams of rage.

OoOoOoO

"So which one is snoring?"

Temari gave Shikamaru a sly little smile and even the near-total darkness couldn't hide the amusement in her eyes.

"Neither one," he said, and he wondered if the tree she'd picked to sit against was as lumpy and uncomfortable for her as it was for him.

"If that's not snoring, then I don't know what is."

"I can barely hear it," he said, dropping his voice a few decibels to remind her she should probably do the same.

"So you concede someone is snoring. Which one?"

Shikamaru finally glanced over his shoulder. It was probably Neji, he figured, sitting against another tree with a field blanket over his shoulders, his head inclined just far enough forward to impede him from taking breath easily. Shino, oddly, was laid out like a board, hands folded over his belly, communing in silence with the ground. He looked like a corpse, but if that was how he was comfortable, so be it.

"Let them sleep," he said. "It's our watch."

Neji looked as though he was having enough difficulty sleeping well as it was, and an amused Temari was probably the worst variety because she was utterly merciless when she wanted to be irritating. He wouldn't wish her on anyone, much less Neji who was well known to be extremely irritable under the right circumstances.

"You bore."

She picked up a pebble and her body shook against his as she threw it into the distance, and it pinked off of something hard before fading into the night.

"Alright," she said, and sighed perhaps too melodramatically to be entirely sincere, "you're not biting tonight, which means you really are worried. It can't be that bad, can it?"

He didn't answer right away, and she jostled him in the ribs with an elbow.

"Well?"

"Can't say either way for sure," he said quietly, still trying to remind her to keep her voice down. "Although that's not what I'm thinking."

"You know I'm not going to be happy if you make me guess at this all night."

He didn't answer right away, lifting his eyes back to the speckled dome of the heavens. There were so many stars in the wilderness, in this realm so almost completely devoid of habitation.

He knew it was the lights that chased away the stars. People feared the dark, lit their fires and cowered in the tepid light they could build and understand. They forgot how unutterably huge and profound the universe was while they hid away from it and pretended they knew everything they would ever need to know.

It was an easy mistake to make. Even out on this open plain the horizon circumscribed what appeared to be a vast area. Some people, those few who herded here, might never leave that circle their entire lives. But on the whole, it was an infinitesimal fraction of the universe.

He'd made that mistake once, assuming he could quietly slink away into his own corner and live unmolested by the world, but the world came to him anyway. It had a tendency to do that.

Asuma had tried to teach him there were things bigger than himself, and Asuma had died before he'd entirely realized it. He'd regret that forever.

"This is bigger than it looks," he said. "There are consequences here for a lot of people. I don't think we can afford to fail at this."

"Of course not." Temari chucked another stone into the night, and he never heard it land. "If we don't get this guy, Oto and Kumo are going to be tripping all over each other demanding the right to go looking for him themselves, and we'd be hard pressed to deny them given how over-stretched both our countries are at the moment. They'll be asking for all kinds of concessions neither of us can afford."

"It's not just that. That, we could handle. It's...largely internal."

"It can't possibly spark an internecine conflict. You said it yourself, the Uchiha are a dead clan."

"No, nothing that overt. It's...subtle, but it changes everything."

Temari let her head tip over to bounce off his skull. She didn't pull it away.

"You worry too much," she said, and there was still curiosity in her voice, but she left it unsaid. She'd decided whatever he was worrying about fell too far out of her jurisdiction and was forcing herself to leave it at that, he knew.

"You don't worry enough."

"Dumbass," she lied.

"Bitch," he lied.

Her sandy hair scratched against his neck and he tried not to notice too much.

"So," she said, a jaw too delicate for her words moving against his shoulder, "how do we kill this bastard? You've thought about it, I hope."

"Ugh." Shikamaru felt a headache coming on, although he was probably just projecting. "That's the problem."

"Sure is. So? Remember I really don't know anything about this guy."

"He's fast, clever, and his blood-line's terrible -- if I remember right, he can see chakra and anticipate movement, so anything short of total surprise and we might as well not have bothered. You're not exactly subtle, so you're either going to be bait or relegated to support."

Temari bit him on the shoulder because she couldn't be bothered to move the rest of her, and he winced as her hair got in his eyes.

"I can too be subtle. I remember reading one of your reports about this once, it was incomplete and really kind of useless."

"You just made my point, you know. It's not well documented, no," he said, scratching idly at the stubble that had sprouted up over the last two days. He'd forgotten to shave and it was getting annoying. "At least we have some experience dealing with it; he's not the first in that family to go rogue. Kakashi added a lot to that file, too. In any case, we should be able to do it with the people we have here, now."

"How so?"

"We can keep him contained, force him to go places he doesn't want to, and keep him in close combat with Neji. If at all possible I'd like to keep Shino completely under wraps until he can surprise him and suck him dry. The biggest problem is genjutsu, really, which is why I'd like to get the jump on him."

"Assuming we can find him," Temari said. "This is a big place, and even if he is still hanging around here waiting for more teams to come through, we still have hundreds of square kilometers to comb through."

"That's why we have those two."

Temari moved, finally, turning to face him. His arm had been falling asleep, and she knelt on one knee, propping her chin on the backs of her fingers. In the starlight, she was defined more by the shadows that outlined her features, but their eyes met anyway. She liked to be face to face when they were talking business.

"Even with those two we're going to be out here for a long time, Shikamaru. You know just as well as I do it takes days to find even regular bandits. It took us months to pacify this place once the alliance was formalized and trade opened up. I mean, even this Uchiha guy and his crazy eyes missed the Kirigakure team on that first day."

"None of them had black hair, and he doesn't have telescopic vision like the Hyuugas do anyway. He's not completely indiscrimi...wait."

There was something else, another assumption that had lead him astray. He'd made the same mistake again, drawn limits around what he imagined was the entire world, missed a step. It was such an easy mistake to make.

"That's what we forgot," he said, frowning. "We assumed from the start that those teams ran into a missing-nin who murdered them."

"...that's still what happened," Temari said, picking her words slowly, waiting for him to finish thinking. "Even if he is from your village."

"Yes," he said, "but we never revisited that assumption. I never stopped to think about it again, even after we figured out that he was looking for specific genin."

"So?"

"Temari, he was looking for very specific people, and he _found _them out here. Even with a good pair of binoculars, I'm not sure you could pick out hair colour reliably in the day, and you said your outpost was reporting flashes in the dark."

"He found three teams at night, kilometers apart from each other."

She fell back to a full kneel, resting her entire weight on his right shin, a hand over her mouth as she thought it through.

"He must have tracked them then," she said as she finished working it out. "They all had to report in at the outpost so we'd know they'd left the country. I signed them all out. But it was night, and even if we can all see in the dark when we need to, I'm not sure it would be good enough for reliable tracking unless he's an absolute expert."

"Even if he were," Shikamaru said, holding up three fingers, "that's three teams. Kilometers apart. He had to have followed them."

"They all passed through within a half-hour of each other. Clones, you think?"

"He's good enough his clones would be hard to detect. And, if the surprise was complete, the clones might have been enough to take out some of those jounin, especially if they weren't paying complete attention. There is supposed to be a truce on, after all."

"He was within at most binocular distance of the outpost and I didn't even know he was there. And we probably passed right by him when we went out to investigate..."

"We're in the wrong place," Shikamaru said, sitting up straight. Temari's eyes were dark and the murderous spark in her eyes lit and flared. "He went right back to the outpost after he was done to wait for the next round of dropouts."

"And we sent them on a detour, hours south of here. Oh, gods."

She stood and strode over to where Neji and Shino were still fast asleep.

"Get up!" she shouted, and they were on their feet in combat stances before Shikamaru had finished dusting himself off. Temari had mentioned Ino's team had passed by the checkpoint already, the last time she'd called in to the outpost for an update -- and that meant that his own terrible underestimation of the situation had put her and her students at risk. Not to count Kiba, who he'd already failed once before.

"We're in the wrong place," he said, sighing with the weight of the revelation. "He's been following the teams right from the other border, which means we're at least three to four hours out of position."

Neji was slow to stand down, but gradually the veins around his eyes diminished into his skin.

"Then we need to get moving," he said, unflappable again, letting his sense of professionalism take reign once more. "As soon as possible."

"You've not had a chance to sleep," Shino said, covering his eyes with his sunglasses despite the darkness.

"I'll be fine," Temari said. "Like I said earlier, we got to sleep most of the day already."

"Like she said. We need to go, now."

OoOoOoO

It was bedlam.

Sakura and Hinata touched soil for the first time in miles outside the front gates of Konohagure's little border fort, and they hit the ground running. It was thanks to Hinata's byakugan that they'd had any kind of advance warning, and a pair of synchronized clicks announced a their medical kits being unstrapped as they burst through the gates into a worst case scenario.

Between Akamaru's desperate howling, the shouting of the resident medic trying to keep things under control, the genin screaming in fearful encouragement, and the wailing of those who'd already lost their cool, neither of them had any good idea of exactly what was happening.

"Sitrep!" Sakura said, her voice a harsh bark underlined with the confident imperative of a commanding officer, and it grabbed the medic's attention immediately as she and Hinata came through the door.

"Two trauma cases," he said, hands still glowing green with chakra as he tried to close what were absolutely some of the most heinous and extensive wounds she'd ever seen on any one person. "Massive lacerations, major blood loss here. The other, she just fainted. I was hoping she'd hold out but she's got one of the genin working on her now."

Hinata identified the patient before Sakura could make him out.

"Kiba!" she yelped, sharing the same anguished timbre with Kiba's hound, who was pacing fretfully outside in the courtyard, clearly wanting to help but aware he'd only get underfoot. "Sakura, I've got this."

She let Hinata go, and turned to find the other patient, covered in blood and laid out on another table.

"Oh, gods," she said in a halted breath, and she was kneeling on the bench, medical bag already half open. "Ino, honey."

"She's still...she's still breathing, ma'am," the genin said, a boy with dark hair, and she could tell from the way his shoulders shook and his breath hitched that he was panicking. "I healed her! I know I did, and she was okay and now I don't know what to do!"

"Alright, you did fine," she said, trying to keep her voice as smooth and calming as possible while she double checked her friend's breathing. "It's going to be okay, now can you tell me what happened?"

She was already checking Ino for injuries, her hands running down the sides of her body in search of open wounds. Ino's pulse was thready and weak, but she was still alive and still kicking if only barely. Her face was draped in blood, her long hair stained dark and stringy with clot, and there was something wrong with her eye, but that could wait if she'd been conscious earlier.

"Sword," the genin said, trying to keep himself from falling apart and succeeding only a little better now. He put a hand on her upper abdomen. "Here. But I closed the wound! Like she showed me!"

Sakura let her hands skim over the rest of Ino's torso. She'd been bleeding there, too, and her body was wet with it, but as the genin had said, she no longer had any open wounds.

Her fingers probed the spot the genin indicated, and Ino's belly was hard and swollen.

"It's internal, sweetheart, she's hemorrhaging," she said, finding her gloves, "I got this."

The genin watched in awe as she extended a scalpel of chakra from two fingers and cut back through the same hole he'd already sealed. She worked quietly, giving him instructions, giving him hope and doing her best to share her feigned serenity.

Ino's liver was a bit of a mess.

Whatever sword had pierced her had cut nearly straight through her body, thankfully missing her spine and aorta by little more than a few centimeters. Only a few minor arteries hadn't been spared. But where it had failed to kill her immediately, it made certain that she would have died not too long after.

Not only had it cut clear through her, there was burning, and Ino was fortunate that whatever fire or lightning had hurt her had also cauterized a fair amount of the damage. Not all, but clearly enough to bring her this far alive and, apparently, keeping Kiba stable all the while.

"What's your name?" she asked, all the while sucking the black, bile-stained blood out of Ino's abdominal cavity with a short piece of sterile rubber tubing and a steady flow of her own chakra.

"Takeshi. Nakajima Takeshi," he said, and he looked uncomfortable with his assigned role of holding apart his teacher's abdominal muscles.

"You're doing fine, Takeshi."

In the end, she had to cut out what remained of the three left-most lobes, and then cauterize and seal the vessels that had fed them. Maybe one day Ino would thank her for helping her lose a couple of pounds, but today wasn't going to be that day.

When she was done, she sucked out what blood remained in the wound, and shook some antibiotic powder over everything. She helped Takeshi do a somewhat more elegant job than he'd done the first time around, and they were both gratified to feel Ino's pulse strengthen, if only just a little. Rules of triage dictated that Ino's eye would have to wait for now.

She left Takeshi in charge, asking him to keep a very, very close watch on her condition. Ino still needed blood, but she was out of immediate danger, and Kiba was still in worse shape.

The local medic had been reduced to pumping Kiba's heart for him and helping him breathe, all while Hinata frantically pulled together the profound, bleeding gashes on his limbs and tried to close them. Chakra alone wasn't enough for injuries this severe, and she'd resorted to old-fashioned needle and surgical thread. She worked wordlessly in segments, from the deepest cuts to the surface, and she was going as quickly as she could, but Kiba was still bleeding out.

He had burns, too, burns inside the cuts, meticulously applied and Sakura realized that Ino had ordered them to help control what bleeding she could. It would complicate recovery, no doubt, but it was saving his life. She hoped it wouldn't cost him his arms, but that was something for the hospital to worry about later.

For now, she merely fished a hand into her own bag, changed into a fresh pair of gloves, and got to work.

In the end, they managed to get them both somewhat stable. Kiba's wounds were closed, but they'd need major reconstruction and probably some of the powerful, life saving seals she didn't have access to here.

If Ino's liver was a mess, her right eye was worse.

It had been healed, a little; sealed was perhaps a better word, since it looked like Ino had done what appeared to be a rushed, half-assed job before gluing her eyelids shut over it.

It was grotesque to look at, and it was clear her eyeball had been perforated with a vertical, inch and a half gash through the centre of her iris.

"What did you do, Ino?"

"She...I don't know. She did that thing where she goes in someone's head, and when she came back it was bleeding everywhere and she was screaming."

Ino coughed, and Sakura had Takeshi hold her head still and hold the eyelids back while she worked. He couldn't look, and she didn't blame him. There wasn't much she could do at this point besides try to reconstruct its overall shape so it wouldn't have to be excised...but Ino was going to lose sight in this eye.

"Best I can do," Sakura said, in a low voice, sealing the eyelids shut again with the same kind of chakra bandage, and fashioning a patch out of gauze to keep it protected. "Whoever you did this to, sweetheart, he's hurting."

Outside, Hinata was helping the garrison rig up a basic sledge and lashing it to Akamaru, who whimpered and paced on the spot, paws lifting and falling with nervous energy.

"I know you can understand me," Hinata said, softly, staring into Akamaru's bright black eyes and the flicker of the customs house lights reflected there. "You need to carry them home, okay? Can you do that?"

Akamaru whined and licked at Hinata's face, and Sakura could only assume it was a yes. For her part, she was busy strapping her patients down as carefully as possible, with the chuunin medic's help, and Takeshi's as well.

Ino coughed again, and her remaining eye fluttered open.

"Sa...Sakura?" she said, tentatively, as though she couldn't believe her sight. Her normally melodious voice was a horrid croak.

"It's me." Sakura took her hand carefully, reassuringly. "It's me."

"Wh'r's Ki...Kiba?"

Her pale eye flashed in its socket, trying to look around despite the restraints Sakura had imposed on her body.

"He's not out of trouble yet," she said, honest. "He's...in critical condition, but if he gets home fast...he might just make it. I'm sending the medic here, the garrison team, and the Nakajima boy home with you, and all the appropriate blood from the local stash. It's the best I can do."

"Th...th...tha..."

Tears welled up and spilled down Ino's cheek, smudging the blood and marring its morbid coat with a lighter trail.

"I know. It's okay. I'm going to put you under now, okay? You need to rest."

Ino's hand tightened on hers with unnatural strength for someone in her condition.

"W...wait... It...was...Ss...Sas...ke," she finally groaned, and Sakura couldn't find it in herself to disbelieve anymore. "T...took...h's...his fuck'n eye."

There was a proud, sad little smile ghosting on her lips, and Ino's hand relaxed, tacit permission for her sedative.

Sakura injected her with her own tears preparing to cascade. Her best friend wasn't ever supposed to be this way, and the worry that had quietly hounded her since they'd left Konoha was cut with the guilt that she'd worried almost as much that Sasuke was responsible for this as she'd worried for Ino's safety.

Akamaru took off into the night with his escort, his injured, and a mournful look, his usual loping run replaced by a smooth, even trot. Every step looked as though he wanted to move faster, but he was doing his best. A small voice she knew well made her look back.

"What about us, Hinata?"

The remaining genin stood in the courtyard, just as badly stained with blood and shock written on their faces. Haruka had her face buried in Hinata's back, arms wrapped around her waist as tightly as possible.

There were the other two girls from Kiba's team, not far, holding on to each other with the same desperate strength, and it looked like Haruka had just left them. The two other boys from Ino's team sat near each other, one of them pulling up grass and tossing it away with an absent look on his face. They were clustered together by team, little families leaning on each other for support in their own ways.

"Is anyone else injured?" Hinata said, loosening Haruka's arms just enough to turn around and hug her back. They all shook their heads, and Sakura couldn't help but pity them. It wasn't every team that went through a trial by fire this intense, and they were still children after all.

Hinata went on, her voice soft but immensely strong, a crutch for them to lean on as they found their own strength.

"Then what I need you to do is to follow them. Your new mission is to make sure they get home as quickly and safely as possible. They're counting on you. Do you understand me?"

One of the boys got shakily to his feet and nodded ever so slowly.

"Y...yeah. Right. Come on, Dai."

The shorter girl on Kiba's team, the one Sakura liked because she was normally such a little spitfire, took a hesitant step, and started pulling the Aburame girl behind her.

"Kiyoka...Haruka...let's go."

"You won't be followed," Hinata said. "I promise. Sakura and I, we'll make sure you won't be."

"Hinata...Aunt Sakura..." Haruka reluctantly let go of Hinata, and took a step back into the arms of her team mates. "He's _dangerous_."

"We'll be alright," Sakura said, although she wasn't sure she believed it. "Go home with your teachers, okay? We'll see you when we get back."

"Be...be careful," Haruka said, and the light from the building caught her eyes as she turned ran out to follow Akamaru and the injured with the rest of her team.

Sakura found herself speechless.

Uzumaki Haruka had the sharingan.


	5. 4: Self

Examination: Self

Despite the fact that they'd only had a paltry few hours of sleep, Shikamaru thought Neji and Shino seemed no worse for the wear as they raced through a warm, windless night. Which was good; a strategist could only do so much with the tools he was provided, and while Shikamaru knew he was uncommonly good at making do with what he had, he had in his possession this moment some prodigious tools.

Not that it made their already accelerated pace any less urgent, and not that he was particularly confident about his chances at keeping a healthy margin for victory. Uchiha Sasuke was no slouch, and given he'd been on his own for such a long time, was no doubt well adapted to fighting on his own against stiff odds.

Shikamaru had a hard time conceiving of an outcome without injuries, and any scenario he could come up with where they all -- he, Temari, Neji, and Shino -- came out unscathed relied far too much on sheer chance for his comfort. He much preferred dealing with absolutes: facts and figures, established patterns and known quantities.

Even so, between them they carried more ability than was usually seen in any given team of ninjas, unusual in that all four of them were typically leading their own teams rather than united into one. He'd called in the big guns, and Tsunade had provided...and this knowledge made him fear all the more for Ino and her team.

The realization that Sasuke had been following teams right from Kaze no Kuni's border and assaulting them in a place where they could not reliably receive timely backup had driven a cold lance of ice into his chest. The facts were stark in their simplicity: Ino was wandering out here, in the dark, with three genin, one of which had black hair. She might as well have painted a bulls-eye on her chest labeled 'Apply Chidori Here'.

There wasn't much room for chance.

"Still worried about your old team-mate?"

Temari's words scattered between exertions as she slid through another dusty landing and gathered her legs beneath her for another jump into the darkness.

Shikamaru didn't say anything, but Temari nodded in the self-satisfied way that indicated she knew she was right.

"I won't tell you not to think about it, because you will," she said, "I will tell you I'd honestly rather have you thinking about what to do with us when we find him."

"I am," he said, although he knew it didn't sound too reassuring.

At least Chouji was probably safe. Temari was still getting radio reports from her outpost, and they'd trickled away as the last of the teams who'd failed the second round reached the border. Chouji's team hadn't ever arrived there, so they were probably still in Sunagakure preparing for the final round...which was infinitely preferable to the situation Ino was now in.

Even though she could be loud, irritating, and nosy, she was still Ino, and that made her among one of the most caring friends a person could have. If she meddled in your business, it was probably because she was trying to fix your problems. Or else she was digging up gossip she could hold over you later, but that usually didn't happen unless you made her angry.

Kiba was out there somewhere too, and Shikamaru's nearly eidetic memory provided details that did little to assuage him. There were two genin on his team, and though one was very clearly an Aburame born, he doubted that would stop Sasuke from homing in on the other.

And Uzumaki Haruka was an adopted orphan.

"Neji," he said, and he almost missed the reply to the air rushing in his ears.

"Hm."

"Wasn't there some kind of story behind the way Naruto ended up adopting your niece?"

"Yes. Sakura performed a cesarean on a wanderer who'd been bitten by a snake in the Forest of Death. I assisted her in the delivery, but Naruto was there as well. Why do you ask?"

"Did you ever find out who that woman was? I seem to remember you wanted to go through the archives around that time."

Neji shook his head, hair twisting behind him.

"No, we had no previous records of her existence. She may have been a foreigner, though. Sakura suggested she might be from Nami no Kuni. Certainly a civilian, I recall her chakra system was not well developed at all."

A foreigner. It wasn't particularly useful information, but compared to the list of exam participants he'd read through, albeit quasi-legally through Temari, it placed Haruka among a small subset of examinees of unknown or questionable origin. It wasn't exactly as though their papers stated such in explicit terms, but he'd compared the bingo book -- and Suna's, something else he wasn't supposed to have access to -- to the list of genin and the vast majority of them were from known ninja families.

Neji looked thoughtful, and he turned on his next leap, bounding backwards so he would face Shikamaru. Temari let slip the beginnings of a warning for Neji to watch his step, but realized just as quickly he could, in fact, see through the back of his head. She mumbled something about him showing off.

"The strangest thing I remember," he said, arms crossed over his chest, "is her eyes. She'd been trying to gouge them out, I thought, and Sakura told me the autopsy confirmed that. They suspected genjutsu was involved, as well."

That didn't mean much, unfortunately.

Neji turned to continue on forward, mild discomfort showing on his face with his latest step, but another flicker of thought creased his eyebrows beneath his hitaiate.

"No, I apologize. The strangest thing...Sakura very nearly saved that woman. We both felt that her life had been saved, until I called Sakura by her maiden name. It wasn't until then that the woman began seizing and died. Neither of us could figure out why."

"Bad timing, maybe?" Shikamaru said, and Neji pursed his lips.

"No," he said, after a pause. "It is a possibility, but I know Sakura, and she is an exceptionally skilled medic. That woman died from fear, not from her injuries."

Shikamaru didn't like it. It was still too grey, an undefined solution sitting just out of reach, but the hints were adding up. It was rare for so many circumstantial snippets of information to come into such perfect coincidence, and given current events...the probabilities were stacking.

"I shouldn't say this," he said, after Neji had turned around again, "and it will need verification...but when you get back to Konohagakure, Neji, I would suggest you have your niece's blood checked out against the database."

All he got was an incredulous stare.

His radio chose that moment to raise from its stupor and bleep harshly. Shikamaru winced; he must have forgotten to plug in his earpiece again. He keyed the switch in mid-step, making a mental note to fix that once he had a chance to stop.

"Base, search team," he said. "What is it?"

He certainly wasn't expecting the name that filtered out through the speaker, tinny and shot through with static.

"Search team, this is Sakura," she said, her voice flush with stress and tinged with an agony he was ill-prepared to deal with. "Lady Tsunade got your last report, and Hinata and I are here as reinforcements. There's a problem, though."

"What's that?"

He'd stopped. Neji was frowning; no doubt because Sakura wasn't supposed to be here, and the history between her and the Uchiha besides. Conflicted was perhaps the best descriptor.

"Team...Team Five and Team Four," she said, biting out their formal appellations with considerable difficulty, and Shikamaru's heart rose into his throat. Even Shino's attention was riveted to the radio. "Damn it, I can't say it like that. Ino and Kiba came through here with their teams. They were attacked."

"Damn it," he said, and then keyed in again. "What's their condition?"

"Not good, at any rate. The genin got out without injury, and they're lucky they did, but Kiba's critical and Ino's still unstable. We did what we could and they are en route to the village for further treatment."

"Will they make it? And where are those genin?"

"Ino, yes. Kiba...it's still up in the air right now. I sent the genin home too, I wanted to get them as far away from here as possible."

Relief washed over him; she was confident that Ino, at least, would make it. But he still had a job to do.

"He's going to chase them. Tell me Hinata is keeping a look out."

"She's doing that, yes. But I don't think he's going to be chasing them very well. Ino said she took out one of his eyes, and from her condition I'm inclined to believe her."

There was silence on the air for a long few seconds while Shikamaru found himself looking for words that wouldn't come. There was a wince in Sakura's voice, a tone of pain that described what Ino had done without saying it. It wasn't a pleasant notion.

"There's a map here," Sakura said after a moment. "It's so bloody I can barely make it out. But bless her, it looks like she marked the spot where they fought him last."

"That cuts down our search time significantly. You stay put, both of you, we're on the way."

"Shikamaru, we need to find him now. He's not going to stay where he is, because he has to know that Haruka..."

"...has the sharingan, I thought as much. If he's as injured as Ino said, that's going to slow him down. Do not go anywhere until we get there."

"Like hell I will," she said. Her snarl exceeded the capabilities of the little speaker, and it crackled and squawked as she spoke. "He's smart, Shikamaru. He's not going to chase her in the state he's in now, he's just going to run, and hide, and we won't get another chance. He's not getting away again. Not after this."

Shikamaru reached down to push the reply button again, but his radio was gone. Neji had it in one hand.

"No you aren't," Neji said, his voice firm and cold, his voice of command. "You're going to stay put until we get there, and then we move together. He won't get far."

"He'll have gotten plenty far as it is already. It's been at least three hours since they escaped him. Even if he took the time to apply first aid -- and he will have -- he's had at least two hours travel time to put between us and him. Not counting the time it'll take us to catch up. By the time you get here..."

"Sakura, this is final. Stay where you are until we arrive."

Temari nudged Shikamaru in the ribs, whispered in his ear.

"As much fun as this is, are you going to put an end to it or what?"

A new burst of static and squealing feedback cut him off and Shikamaru moved to deprive him of the radio with a half-assed grab of his own. It failed miserably, Neji hadn't even noticed.

"Nice," Temari said.

"Bloody hell, you're not listening to damn thing I'm saying, Neji. If I sit here and wait, he's going to be long gone by the time you get here, and we'll never find him again."

The radio was only one-way, and Shikamaru had the impression that if it weren't for the fact they were forced to take turns, they would both be shouting at each other simultaneously. Probably without breathing between sentences.

"And you're not listening to a thing you're being told, either," Neji said in a low growl not far from being forced between his teeth. "Even injured he is going to be dangerous, even more so now that we are between him and what he wants. You are not going to take him on alone, and you are not taking my cousin with you, either."

"No, I am. Fuck you, Neji, I just cut out a third of my best friend's liver because she nearly gave her life to keep my niece alive. He is not getting away with this, not while I can do anything about it."

"You will stay there and wait," he said, in what Shikamaru thought was one of the hardest tones he'd ever heard out of Neji, and that was saying something.

"Oh, bad move," Temari whispered with a sordid, vicarious grin. Shikamaru rolled his eyes, and no one said anything during the ensuing, uninterpretable torrent of invective and static issuing from the speaker.

"Give me that," Shikamaru said, and this time he managed to wrest back control of the radio. Temari was staring at him through the dark behind him, eyes half-closed with mockery written all over her face, he could feel it. "I understand she's your wife, Neji, but this is still ostensibly my operation. Stand down."

Neji seethed, but complied.

"Reserves, search team," Shikamaru said, finally, stressing every word to make sure she understood who was talking and just how annoyed he was getting. "He isn't getting away. Shino is here, and our target is bleeding. The kikaichu will find him. Is that understood?"

He almost wasn't sure she was going to reply.

"Yes," she said, as icily as Neji, "Understood."

"Good. We'll be there shortly, get some rest while you can."

Shikamaru snapped the radio back into its place on his belt, gave Neji a dirty look, and glanced over to Shino.

"They can follow a trail, right?"

OoOoOoO

"That insufferable prick! Who the hell does he think he is?"

Sakura caught herself before her fists hit the table. With her habitual force, she probably would have shattered it, and the broadcasting radio set as well. It took a concerted effort of will to gradually ease the accumulated chakra from her fists back into the rest of her system, and it was not entirely pleasant given the sheer quantity and the knotted concentration she'd given it out of pure reflex.

"I think...I think they're right, Sakura."

She had to try not to snap at Hinata's quiet rejoinder, and settled for clenching her jaw shut as tightly as she could.

"I'm tired," Hinata said, still sitting on the bloody bench Kiba had been lying on while they'd stitched him up.

For the first time since they'd left the village, Sakura got a good look at her partner.

Gone was Hinata's aristocratic poise and the practiced finesse that practically defined her. Barring the long, straight black tresses that fell over her shoulders and down her chest, she looked more like the Hinata of fifteen years ago, afraid and unsure.

Blood stained her jacket from the chest down, seeping swathes of dark crimson deepening as it dried. Even her hair had lost its deep indigo sheen, glinting burgundy in the light. Her hands were conspicuously clean, though, no doubt due to the surgical gloves that lay discarded between her feet, and even then there were splotches and splashes on her ivory white hands where it had leaked in through the cuffs.

If she didn't know better, Sakura might have wondered how someone could bleed so much and not die. Kiba had gone through five units of the stuff, injected straight into his veins only to pool back out onto the floor until they managed to stitch him back together, and it was a testament to Ino's resolve that she'd been able to hold him in stasis while hemorrhaging internally the entire time.

"That...took a lot out of me," Hinata said, eyes downcast, but when she looked up, they were stone-hard, white opals glittering with keen fire. "I don't want him to get away, either. Kiba's my best friend, too. But Shino will find him, I promise. He doesn't have Kiba's smell or my sight, but he has just _so many_ kikaichu he's never lost anything yet. Please, Sakura. We're not ready."

For the first time, Sakura noticed what a mess she was, too. Her hands and arms were stained just as badly as Hinata's, in black and in red, and she had to admit that no matter how much she tried to deny it, maybe some rest would do them both some good.

"Fine," she said, but there was still an edge in her voice. The feeling that she'd buried for years and years had grown again, crawling up out of its dungeon to grasp at her entire imagination, and she had to forcibly push it down just to acquiesce. "Two hours. No more."

Hinata thanked her with a look and a nod, and left, dragging herself up the stairs. The banister creaked under her tiny hand and the weight of her apprehension.

She felt tiny in the empty room, small and alone and everything around her reeked of death and pain. It never had to come to this, so why had it?

Despite herself, she felt responsible. Despite all rational explanations to the contrary, some terrible suspicion within her still lurked and knew there was a reason, and that it was somehow related to her. With it came the inexorable sadness, the helplessness she'd tried so hard to crush, and it threatened to usurp everything she'd built up in herself over the years.

But she wouldn't cry. She wouldn't let it dominate her again, she'd promised herself that much long ago. She couldn't afford to, not now, not ever again.

She found a sink that Hinata had already used, and as the blood on her arms and face joined the rust-tinged trails curling towards the drain, she tried to convince herself that her face was only wet from the water.

When she could breathe again, she found Hinata, curled up on the second floor by the window, dozing lightly. Hinata startled, and her eyes lit up with the byakugan.

"It's...still clear," she said.

Sakura shook her head.

"I'm sorry. Go back to sleep."

She'd always thought of stars as merry, happy creatures, dancing far above the world. A dozen children's stories and rhymes reinforced the image, but now they seemed to mock her in her misery, cheering for no reason whatsoever. So too had they mocked her the night Sasuke had left her, Naruto, and the village.

No matter what she'd told Tsunade, it still hurt, and now she found she couldn't chase it. She knew she was better than this, that she was professional, that she was at the peak of her game, but there was something so very intrinsically wrong.

Dealing with injuries was one thing; she was well accustomed to that, even wounds as grave as those inflicted on Ino, and Kiba as well. Even injuries inflicted on close friends.

What she found she couldn't handle was all the flesh rent by someone who, at her core, she still somehow considered a companion. It had been easy, telling herself she'd deal with it in front of Tsunade, in front of Hinata. Easy to pretend that was the truth, because there'd been so little evidence besides Shikamaru's best guess -- though she'd never doubt him again.

She still remembered Sasuke. She remembered a time when they'd helped each other, though he accepted the assistance of friends but grudgingly. She remembered a time when he had learned to smile, even, however small and however fleeting.

He'd never been a monster. Misguided, but no murderer. So how was it he could do something like this? Ino's injuries moaned at her, shadows in the blood spilled below.

She still wanted answers. Needed answers. Needed to be able to tell Naruto something, something more significant than the base report that would be filed. Naruto deserved to know, once and for all, why his distant friend had turned so sour. Why _their_ distant friend had changed into something so unfathomably cruel.

Hinata sniffled in her sleep, tucking her face deeper into her arms, and it occurred to Sakura, in one horrified moment, that no one was actually keeping an eye on the surrounding countryside. Not her, and not Hinata. The usual crew had been dispatched as escorts for the wounded...which left her.

She checked the time; an hour already had passed, but it seemed like an eternity, and there was still another hour to go before Hinata would even consider discussing options.

"I can't," she said, a low, unconvinced murmur. "I can't leave this place. I can't leave Hinata, I can't..."

And damn, but she was still angry at Neji. What the hell was he thinking throwing _orders_ at her? It wasn't exactly as though she was made of china. Besides which, if there was any one person on this mission who could possibly persuade Sasuke to talk, it was her. Anyone else, and it seemed he was more apt to attack than to explain himself.

Her loyalties fought and tore at each other in her heart, and she bit her lip, bruising it. In fact, one of the tempting voices offered, she was probably more at risk facing him with the rest of the team than by herself. And, it added, this was the only way she'd know for sure.

Sakura silently thanked the regular outpost staff when she discovered they kept the hinges well-oiled as she shut the door behind her and headed off into the night.

The wilderness was a different place without the screaming, a quiet, dry land populated only by the nocturnal insects calling to each other in the night. Here a firefly would sparkle, and be answered there by more of its kind. In the distance a coyote came to rest on its prowl, tilted its head skyward and poured out a lamentation to the night. It seemed appropriate.

Ino's bloody mark suggested she start somewhere down a south-west bearing, so she did. It was an easy trail to follow, even with night-vision. Akamaru hadn't been trying to be stealthy, and the fresh dirt churned up by his claws stood out in the moonlight.

Fifteen minutes at a gentle pace, and she was already at the ridge overlooking the entire valley. Even as far off as it was, the smoldering evidence of battle called to her, a glowering mass of coals from a grass fire that had spread upwind before guttering out and dying, asphyxiated on its own ashes.

Not long after, she was picking her way down the slope, dodging stumpy, gnarled trees and the weedy underbrush that clung with thorns and tore at her legs. The trail wound down along the inside of a dry, wind-eroded ravine, and dumped her out onto the plain below where Akamaru's prints vanished onto a crumbled collection of cracked stones. Beyond, the aftermath of the firestorm that had laid waste to the prairie below beckoned her toward it.

When she found Sasuke, it wasn't because he was making himself scarce.

She noticed him before he saw her, which was strange.

Ino hadn't lied. It looked like he had torn off a sleeve to make a clumsy bandana to conceal the ruin of his eye. Blood and dirt were smeared across a face that was still defiantly handsome, and his clothes were torn in places. Despite all that and the minor cuts here and there, he was still just as deliberate and purposeful, still a force of nature.

When he looked up, saw her, and didn't immediately attack, she thought for a fraction of a second she might actually have a chance to sort this out, to speak to him as friends and find a solution. For a fraction of a second, Sakura thought Sasuke was as she remembered him.

And then he spoke.

"Where is she?" he said, a growl that resonated through his ribs and pulsed in time with the inchoate illusion of fear he threw in her face.

She waded through it, shrugging off the alien feelings, acutely aware they were not her own, because the fear he cast upon her was shallow and pale compared to the knowledge that he was different, that he was another. She didn't answer.

"Where is she!" he shouted, the black pips of the sharingan whirling in the crimson pool of his remaining eye, driven by a fury whose source she couldn't divine.

"You won't find her," Sakura heard herself say. There was no point in playing stupid; she'd seen the sharingan in Haruka's eyes, and it was not something Sasuke could have possibly missed. "Why, Sasuke? Why now? Why like this?"

The questions seemed to take him aback, and he halted. His face shifted, for a moment back to the mask of flat-eyed calm, but she could see the changes boiling beneath its surface before they erupted, and he was gnashing at her again.

"She's the new one," he said, but the words were twisted and different. It was his voice, but something was missing. Something had replaced the confident arrogance he'd once had, tainted it. "She's the last member of my clan. My! Clan!"

His voice dropped again, the creature that inhabited Sasuke's skin slipping into hiding once more.

"Stand aside. This is your last warning."

"I won't," Sakura said, and her fingers curled into fists, stretching the leather of her gloves taut across her knuckles. "You won't hurt her. Not while I'm alive, you won't have her."

"I have no such intention," he said, voice still cool, but she could still see the creature writhing beneath. "She is to come with me. Her place is with me. With her clan."

Something caught fire within her, a rippling candescence that climbed and surged through her veins, and Sakura realized she'd never been truly angry with Neji just now. This was anger, this was raw, unfettered, righteous anger that screamed in her flesh and pulsed behind her eyes.

"Her place is with her family," she said, and her normally pleasant mezzosoprano was dropping into a dangerous place. "And you are not it."

She barely saw the sword clearing its sheath and it shone with the stars as it slashed upward toward her chest. She moved on instinct, kunai in hand as she leaned back and twisted, forcing it away from her.

You, she thought, are not Uchiha Sasuke. And you are not Haruka's family, not her father. Not her...

"What did you do to her mother, Sasuke? Why did you destroy her?"

Sasuke's sword, already rearing back to strike again, paused, and the creature that had attacked her burbled and slipped into the depths of his psyche once more.

"Because she was not you."

Sakura's heart broke.

OoOoOoO

Kiba was pretty sure he was dead.

In the darkness that coddled him, so terrifyingly absolute, so ineffably impenetrable, the old aphorism about thought and existence being correlated was of no comfort at all.

The stillness was intolerable.

He was such a dork, he knew. Constantly inflicting his energy and stupid, blind cheer on everyone around him whether they liked it or not, but he needed it. Not moving -- and the gods and a few of his ex-girlfriends knew how much he moved around in his sleep -- was tantamount to death.

This wasn't movement. No momentum, no change, just the same, weighty inertia tying him down.

The analogy fell apart because he was pretty sure he didn't have a body to tie down any more. Wherever he was, whatever had happened to the essence that was him meant he no longer seemed to have hands or legs, and he was stuck in this peculiar space. He hated it, in a sullen, impish way, a sort of pouty petulance.

He wondered if it could be pouty if he no longer had lips.

The memories floated back to him. He remembered his last, best effort -- best fight he'd ever had, actually. The desperation and unyielding, driving will he didn't know he possessed was a stunning epiphany, even if that last stab had found nothing but dirt and left him defeated.

He remembered figuring out at the very last what had gone wrong. The gatsuuga wasn't supposed to end like that. What made it great, and a staple of his clan's stable of techniques, was its ability to dictate range. It spun so fast he was essentially invincible while in it -- no matter how hard they were thrown, or how much chakra guided them, projectiles would just bounce off, thrown aside by its incredible energy. Trying to physically attack an Inuzuka in full gear was dumb, because that was the whole point of the gatsuuga: it was trying to touch you so it could hurt you.

He'd never considered the moment of slightly disorienting vulnerability that resulted from exiting the attack.

And again, the gatsuuga had an answer for that too: you don't leave the gatsuuga until you're far away from your opponent.

Damned that the Uchiha had figured that out so fast.

He remembered, too, watching Ino fall. She'd been doing just fine, constantly keeping herself away from the genjutsu that had made the fight such a pain. And then the bloody Uchiha had switched it up with a clone. She hadn't noticed, but he had -- the nose knew, it always did -- but he couldn't find the strength to tell her until it was too late.

She hadn't deserved that, and it was his fault.

She was too bright, special. Bratty, but earnest. Pretty, too, under the makeup she seemed to think she needed. Hot stuff, with that flaxen hair hanging down to there, and the sweetest legs. Way, way smarter than he was, and kind of scary, too, the way she could get into your brain and make you do crazy stuff.

And she smelled nice. Always did. Even when she was pissed off.

Especially when she was pissed off.

What a waste.

Maybe in the next life.

He'd not been the best person in this life, though. Maybe not the worst, but he did dumb things every now and again. And, it didn't help he'd killed a few times...well, quite a few times...really a lot. If he was lucky he'd get reincarnated as a dog. That would okay, actually. Liberating, free from the responsibilities and demands of his hectic life, free to wander, free to hunt, free to let it all hang out.

None of them deserved this, though.

If he was dead, and Ino very probably was, so were both their teams.

It was a pure, honest selfishness that was glad he wouldn't have to explain his failure to anyone. Not to mention Hinata, and Naruto. Or Shino and his sister. Or the Nakamuras. And it was a greater shame that he'd never see Kiyoka with a colony big enough to properly swarm someone over, or see Nanami trick the entirety of an enemy patrol into stepping into a kill zone Haruka had laid down somewhere.

Maybe Akamaru had escaped, but that was maybe a worse fate for the big animal. He'd been with Akamaru for a long time, their lives bound together in more ways than any eye could detect. He shared more than friendship with Akamaru: they shared lives. Without him, his poor dog would start to age as though they'd never been bonded.

He was never supposed to grow so large, really. It was only because they were sharing chakra and all that entailed that he'd gotten so big. Now Akamaru was a size that would inflame his hips and bow his spine in the absence of his master's presence. He'd be an invalid in months, if not weeks.

Maybe he'd died by his master's body. Which was more probable, Kiba supposed. Hoped, because the alternative was devastating.

Still, not being able to smell the big lunk was a hole in the world.

Except he could, which was weird, because Kiba was still pretty sure he was dead.

Now that he was paying attention, he was sure of it. Sure, Akamaru smelled like dog, but there were undertones only a dog, or an Inuzuka, could really pick out: the oils in his fur, with hints of dried saliva from where he'd licked himself, and the dirt that lingered between the hairs if he hadn't been properly bathed in a couple weeks. Even the smell of the desert still clung to him, it seemed.

It seemed possible he was hallucinating -- if a dead person could do that, somehow. But there were more smells, it seemed, more familiar presences lingering just out of reach. They were out of focus, melting into each other and for the first time he noticed a hum hovering at the periphery of his consciousness, somewhere beyond the almost pleasant numbness that cocooned him.

Voices, actually, as he tried to focus in on the smells.

As he worked on it, he realized he wasn't dead, not just yet. There was a dull throbbing ache, lurking all around him, all through him.

Shit, he thought. I must be really, really drugged up. Or poisoned.

He hoped for drugged.

The smells resolved, and a wave of joy and the inimitable elation of victory shot through him. They were all there: Kiyoka, like fall leaves and sandstone; Nanami, like clean fur and her fruity shampoo; and Haruka, like beech bark and steel. Ino was there too, hidden in the iron stench of caked blood and entrails, and beyond that the more unfamiliar smells of her team and some others he assumed were friendlies.

The voices followed, too, echoing from far away but resonating as though they were in his head.

"...turn them off, or something? It's starting to creep me out."

One of the boys, Kiba thought. He sounded totally winded, too.

"Look, I get it!" Haruka shouted from the distance "Great, it bothers you. It bothers me too, and if I could do something about it I would have by now!"

Somewhere a lot closer, Akamaru let out an exasperated moan asking them all to shut up, but they didn't hear him and wouldn't have understood anyway.

"Hey," Nanami said, "I thought your dad was that Naruto guy, right? How come..?"

"I don't know why my eyes are all messed up like this!" Haruka said, her exasperation exacerbated with confusion and, Kiba thought, no small measure of discomfort and terror. "And fine, okay, I'm adopted. Happy now? Yay, Haruka's a freak! She's not even from the village!"

"I didn't mean that," Nanami said, quiet and hurt.

"Sure, you didn't. Thanks, Nanami."

Whatever was wrong, Kiba didn't like it. It wasn't like his team to dissolve and bicker, and even if they hadn't made it to the second round, he knew they were stronger than this. Even without him. They were all hurting, it seemed. Kiyoka was mourning her bugs, Nanami sounded lost, and Haruka was falling apart, collapsing into herself and lashing out at the same time. He'd never heard of her like this.

Ino's boys lapsed into a wise silence.

"Um," Kiyoka said, after the quiet stretched on longer than Kiba knew was healthy for anyone. "I don't think you're a freak, Haruka. If you're a freak than so am I."

"No you're not," Haruka said. "You're too nice to be one."

"I'm the one full of insects, remember? But you told me that didn't matter when you said we could be friends, even when some other people were making fun of me. I don't see how this changes anything."

"Your parents aren't trying to kill us," Haruka said, and the revelation hit Kiba about as hard as it had hit anyone else.

"Neither are yours," Kiyoka said stiffly, carefully. He could see her in his mind's eye, focused on her steps as she ran, not daring to find out what the others might think of a potentially contentious opinion. "I don't know where Uzumaki-san is right now but he's not trying to do that."

"Don't you get it? Look at my eyes now and tell me that wasn't the man who..."

"I don't care, Haruka," she said, and their voices faded for a moment as the footsteps stopped. There was a lurch, and Akamaru barked and howled, doing his best to instruct them to hurry on and forget about it until later.

"I don't care," Kiyoka repeated, strength and conviction creeping into her voice as she stood her ground, "so what?"

"So I find out I'm going to turn into something like that and what the hell am I supposed to do now? No one's going to forget what happened here today, they're all going to look at me and know that I'm related to that...that..."

There was the sound of a slap, and Nanami gasped unnoticed in the background.

"Wake up! I like Uzumaki-san, Haruka. He's your father and you shouldn't shame him by thinking your blood makes any difference. You're one of us and you always will be. I don't care where you came from, you're my friend and I'm telling you that you're being stupid!"

No one said anything.

"I'm sorry," Kiyoka added, contrite, and Kiba had a clear mental image of her kicking the dirt and staring at her feet. "That was uncalled for. You're not stupid either."

"No, I totally am. I'm sorry too, Kiyoka. Sorry, Nanami."

"Sorry," Nanami said, "I probably shouldn't have...said...stuff. Wow, Kiyoka, I didn't know you had it in you."

"I don't. Really."

Crisis averted, Kiba thought, good job, Kiyoka. But even as the voices became clearer, so too did the pain. The drugs were wearing off and undiluted agony screamed through him as his body remembered the crimes that had been committed against it.

He heard himself moan and there was a brief flickering of lanterns and the skeletal fingers of trees passing in the night. Something jabbed into the side of his neck and he surrendered himself to the blissful darkness once more.

OoOoOoO

A tiny tremor woke Hinata. She sat up with a start, and her right foot slipped off the bench to the floor with a bang.

She blinked and rubbed at the bridge of her nose to clear the sleep from her eyes, and only then did she notice Sakura was gone.

"Sakura?"

Her voice disappeared into the darkness, darting into the rooms of the border post, seeking but finding no answer. Everything still smelled like old rust, and it seemed stronger and ranker now that she'd been sleeping. She covered her nose as she made her way down the stairs into the light of the floor beneath, and tried not to let it get to her.

"Sakura?" she called again, and there was still no reply. "Oh, no."

The byakugan confirmed her worst suspicions, that Sakura had vanished while she'd been sleeping. That she hadn't been woken up by battle meant it was unlikely she'd been kidnapped, so it had to be that Sakura had left on her own -- which could only mean she was getting herself in trouble.

"Why'd you have to?" Hinata said to herself, tying her hair back and looking for her jacket.

Thunder boomed, and a cursory check outside the window confirmed that it wasn't cloudy. Hinata made the signs and her eyes ached with a familiar over-strain, and her brows furrowed as she surveyed the surrounding countryside.

Her range wasn't as good as Neji's, certainly, but it didn't take a genius to realize that the flashes bursting up from inside the ravine could only have one cause and one cause alone.

Hinata ran for the radio first.

"Search team, reserve. We are engaged about two or three kilometers southwest of this outpost. Will not wait for acknowledgment. Hurry!"

She skidded out the door and vaulted the compound fence, doing her best to reach the fight before anything seriously wrong happened. At the very least, she could consider the rumblings and explosions as a good signs, since they meant Sakura was still probably holding her own. In the silver world of the byakugan, she watched a stretch of the ridge nearly fifty meters long pulse with chakra and give way to the ensuing shockwave, tumbling down out of sight in a landslide.

Keeping her attention divided between her footing and the telescopic, transparent view she was using to keep tabs on the battle was not by any means easy, but a necessary compromise as the sounds of violence drifted northward and still further away from her. She dodged plants, stones, and cracks in the earth as she made her way forward, and finally she caught a figure at the edge of her range.

She wasn't exceptionally good at reading lips, but she'd had some practice. The byakugan made it easier, certainly, and she was often asked to try if there was an espionage component to her missions.

The fact that Sakura and the Uchiha were shouting at each other helped.

"You left me!" he was screaming, almost mournfully, "You promised and you left me alone!"

"We left you?" Sakura screamed back, stomping, and another section of the ridge gave way. Sasuke flew above the rumble of falling clay and shattered shale, perching gracefully on the remains of a collapsed tree. "You're the one who abandoned us! You're the one who wanted to go alone! What was I supposed to do?"

"That man was mine to kill! Mine!"

He was incoherent, clearly. Perhaps Hinata had missed something important earlier, but the words that were coming out of his mouth seemed as related as the brutally unpredictable thrashings of his mood.

"I don't care!" Sakura said, and an explosive note blasted the tree into a fine hail of dessicated splinters.

"He killed my family! Everyone I cared about! He ruined my life! He was mine!"

"Great! Just great! I'm glad to know I mattered that much!"

It was also good, Hinata thought, that they were still trading mostly words. Sakura was attacking, certainly, but she'd also seen her fight and knew she wasn't entirely into it yet. Genjutsu didn't appear to be a factor yet.

Who knew? Maybe their old bonds held some strength yet, but the shouting match was far from over.

Already, Hinata was close enough that she didn't have to rely exclusively on her eyes to make out what they were saying. It didn't help her theory that their kinship was holding, though.

"You don't understand," Sasuke was saying again, and though he was growing hoarse, it seemed as though his rage had dissipated for the moment. "You could never understand. It was my duty."

"Oh, of course!" Sakura shouted back, oblivious or uncaring about his new demeanor. "It was always about you! It always had to be about you, didn't it?"

Her voice wavered, but she never let up, and Sasuke's cold stare was frankly unnerving. Hinata slowed her pace and stopped, still hiding about the ridge line. Better to hide and move when the moment was right than to rush in and ruin all surprise.

"Yes it was tragic! Yes it was horrible! Yes I'm sure you suffered! But you didn't have to go it alone. You didn't have to leave because we would have helped you, and you just had to go ahead and ruin everything!"

Sakura sniffed and swiped quickly at her eyes with the back of her hand, never taking her eyes off her errant ex-team-mate.

"Impossible," Sasuke said, and the sneer destroyed his features more than the gaping hole where his right eye had been. A moment later, concern flashed across his face, before dying in the resurgent disdain that flooded it once more. "He would have killed you all. You're too weak. Look at you, crying again."

"Oh, good one," Sakura said, mirthless laughter spilling from her lips and she made her contempt for his statement clear by dashing in to punch him again. Sasuke stepped aside and flicked his sword at her, forcing Sakura to duck, spin inward, and rise, kicking backward at his head as she turned. Chakra flared in Hinata's vision as Sasuke deflected it, but his grunt betrayed the fact that it would have shattered his arm if he'd tried to block it directly.

"If that's true, how come we're all still here, one village, one team? How did we ever finish the rest of Akatsuki without you?"

Sasuke bayed with incoherent anger and rushed Sakura. She'd been occupied with shouting him down with her fists at her sides, and it left her open and vulnerable. Hinata chose her moment to make herself known.

His sword swept down in an arc designed to intercept Sakura's head at the temple. Sakura reacted well though a little late, bringing her hand up to catch his arm at the wrist, but a shining lash the colour of a young star caught the blade first and moved it away, beads of light spilling off into the night where it touched.

It wasn't much force, but it drew the blade away and left him exposed, and Sakura capitalized with an axe kick that crushed him to the ground and would have broken every bone in his body if he hadn't escaped by virtue of the ubiquitous kawarimi. Hinata closed her hand, shutting off the stream of chakra.

"If we're all so weak," Sakura screamed, "then what was that? If we're all so weak, how did Ino get your eye?"

There was nothing left of the collected Uchiha that Hinata had glimpsed only moments ago, his wordless, tortured sounds revealing his new location.

"That's what I thought," Sakura said, the anger still burning in her eyes and her voice. "Good to see you, Hinata."

"So...it really is him?"

Sakura nodded, and wiped a bead of sweat away from her neck. As she did so, eyes jaded in more ways than one flashed downward for nothing but a moment, and Hinata glimpsed the sorrow hiding there.

"It didn't have to be this way," Sakura said, quiet. "I'm sorry I ran out on you...I had to know."

"I know. All that matters is that you're okay. Did you learn anything?"

She honestly thought Sakura was about to lose it right there, but her friend pulled herself together, blinked, and the old resolve settled on her face again.

"It's him...but he's not there. He's not really in there. I'm hearing all the things he used to say, and I can't believe they still...it doesn't matter."

"It does matter, Sakura," Hinata said, as they turned to watch for him again. He'd be back, they both knew, and the screaming had stopped. Hinata wasn't sure which version of Sasuke she'd rather face. "It matters because it matters to you."

"Thanks, Hinata. You didn't, ah, tell Neji what I did. I hope."

Hinata shook her head.

"Either he'll figure it out or it won't make a difference."

"Thanks again," Sakura said, and slammed a foot sideways into the ground as Sasuke came running back towards him. A plume of pulverized stone erupted forward, showering him in fragments the size of Hinata's head, but they passed through him. Sakura took steps to deal with the illusion, steps behind Hinata whose byakugan had already seen through it.

Hinata's pseudo-jyuuken forced him away from his flanking maneuver, sparks arcing off the stone as twin whips trailed whisper-thin burns behind them. She'd learned refinement with this, her one true original technique, and it was no longer the stylized, chaotic dance it had once been.

Her feet moved with her hands, body twisting to match, and her mind was on the narrow, pin-prick openings of her palm tenketsu. She'd never been particularly excellent at identifying and shutting down the chakra systems of her opponents, even if she was capable and quite competent, but she was more keenly aware of her own.

Every movement she made was devoted to maximizing the flow of energy. Even as she restricted Sasuke's escape there with a sweeping motion of her arms that cut an arc of pain across his path, she flexed at the waist and extended a leg to open the pathways within her own body. The form fed the flow, and the flow fed the form, endless. And behind it all, her technique was supported by the deliberate, stable, and unsurpassed footwork of the jyuuken, evolved around a framework she'd studied all her life.

Hair-fine, furnace-hot, and steel-hard, her chosen weapons were as flexible as silk. They didn't have exceptional reach, but they were ideal, creating a zone centered around herself in which she could protect and punish at once. In the day they were virtually invisible; at night they were a display whose deadly significance could not be lost on the Uchiha, who would see them brighter than anyone.

He no longer seemed interested in trading barbs with Sakura. She no longer seemed interested in anything other than subduing him.

Sakura recognized Hinata's safe zone for what it was and lingered in it, moving to intercept Sasuke when he strayed too far from them, and darting back when he moved to reply to her. They could match him illusion for illusion, and if he was too agile for them to catch by themselves, they would hold him here.

Every minute they held was another minute in which Kiba, Ino, Haruka, and the genin had to escape. Every minute they held, the search team drew nearer, and Hinata might have found the irony amusing if she had the time to think about it.

Neither of them could see how the iris of his remaining eye morphed continually back and forth, shifting patterns erratically.

OoOoOoO

"Hey, Hideo. So is she going to be okay?"

"Shut up, Dai. She'll be fine. Didn't you see who that was who rescued us?"

"Am I supposed to know?"

"You're totally useless. Those were the two Hyuuga women. They're both, like, some of the best. Besides Ino-sensei. If they thought she was good enough to send with us, she has to be okay. Did you get the water?"

"Yeah, sure. Takeshi, say something."

"I almost killed her," Takeshi said, almost whispering. "If she dies, it's because I screwed up."

"No way, man...hey, she's moving. She's moving, awesome!"

Ino blinked, and then slammed her eyes shut. Someone had cranked the lights up too far, and it was killing her eyes.

Eye.

It didn't hurt all that much anymore, curiously. Just a low, dull throbbing, and she could feel her every heartbeat shaking beneath the eyelid. Slowly, she willed her left eye open, wincing against the light as her eye adjusted. Objects swam into focus, too: ceiling tiles, that damned fluorescent bulb, the half-full intravenous bag of saline, a curtain.

She was in a hospital. Thank the gods.

"Hey...Ino-sensei, can you hear me?"

"Sure can, kiddo," she croaked, and her smile stung as it disturbed the minor cuts that still marked her face. "You're all here?"

"Yeah, we are," Hideo said. "Team Four, too. They're with Kiba-sensei. Want some water?"

She did. The worst case of cottonmouth she had in a long time was plaguing her, and she was grateful that it was now the greatest of her worries. Still...she had been stabbed in the stomach.

"Am I allowed to?"

"The doctor didn't say no."

"Can I sit up?"

"I didn't ask."

Well, whatever. She took the little plastic cup, fumbled it to her mouth and drank. The first mouthful was horrible -- it tasted like blood and ash, and the stickiness on her tongue clung to it until she swished it around a few times. The second was a million times better, and she felt as though she could drink forever.

"Thanks, Hideo."

"Hey, I'm the one who went to get it."

"You too, then. All of you. You did good."

She couldn't see too much from where she was lying. Tipping her head up to drink the last of the water was hard enough on her tortured abdominals as it was. She concluded she probably wouldn't try that again for a while, regardless of what the doctors said.

Still, she couldn't help the laughter. For a pleasant, insane moment, nothing mattered. Her missing eye didn't matter, the pain in her stomach, nothing. She'd earned the right. It came first in creeping snorts, tiny half-sneezes of amusement, and then chuckles, and it almost reached a fully mature laugh before the agony in her gut forced her to kill it.

"Oh, gods, it's good to be alive," she said, and she couldn't help the tear that forced its way out. "Oh, come on, Takeshi. It's over."

"I'm sorry," he said, cringing away from her. "It didn't work...I couldn't..."

"What is it? C'mon, look at me."

He refused. Dai filled in the gaps.

"He thinks he almost killed you somehow."

"That's not possible," she said. "What happened?"

"I thought...I thought I did it right, but Sakura-san had to cut you open and fix it. You were bleeding inside, and I just closed it like I'm stupid because of course it's not a flesh wound. She had to cut out, like, half your liver and I had no idea."

Her hand went to the scarring on her stomach. Sakura had done a good job, it seemed, it was barely noticeable to the touch, but even so Ino felt certain that it looked a lot worse than it felt. Now that she was looking for it, there was a strange lightness, an odd void like something was missing after all.

Maybe she'd get used to it. Maybe not.

"Oh, Takeshi," she said. "It's not like you're fully trained for field surgery yet anyway. All I've taught you so far is first aid and some of the basics, so I'm ordering you not to think of it that way. Do you understand? None of you are supposed to be facing things at this level. Not yet, not for a long time. The fact that we're all here -- that I'm here too -- means you all did a superb job."

Dai yawned. Hideo handed him the empty cup.

"He missed the part where he was helping Sakura-san with the surgery."

"See? Exactly my point. Did you pay attention to her?"

Takeshi nodded.

"Did you learn anything?"

"I guess I can seal a wound better than before."

"Then you're doing fine. I'm proud of you guys."

They were all tired, she could tell. They all had heavy bags under their eyes, and when they moved they were sluggish. They were all dirty too, and if she felt somewhat fresh it was probably because the nurses had done something to clean her up before changing the bandages over her eye. She was wearing one of those horrible hospital gowns, too.

She didn't dare ask what time it was.

"We can't be in the village yet, are we?"

"No," Hideo said, and he told her what town they'd stopped in, for Kiba's sake. Fortunately there was a small community hospital, and apparently he was out of danger for now. She was glad someone was finally monitoring him who could actually give him the help he needed.

She let her team hang around for a while, as tired and obviously in need of rest as they were. They needed this as much as she did, time to just hang out and try not to think too hard about what had happened.

Eventually they started to drift off. Takeshi fell asleep first, slumping onto her bed, and had to be half-way carried out of the room. Dai, for once, had taken responsibility for everyone and found them a room at an inn not too far away.

Ino supposed she should sleep too, but she'd just been knocked out for far too long. She found herself restless, which only got worse as she realized she probably wasn't allowed to turn onto her side, either, so she resigned herself to quietly suffering in the dark.

It wasn't pleasant. Her mind turned to the bandages over her face again and again, and she wished she knew if she'd have to deal with an empty socket for the rest of her life. Prosthetics were creepy and never looked right, and the image was personally horrifying. And even if her eye was still there, it would be mauled beyond repair. She'd made certain of that when she jammed a fistful of dirt into Sasuke's eye to guarantee she ruined it while she was in his body. At least hers wasn't going to get infected.

Gods, she was going to be ugly for the first time in her life. Scarred and beaten-looking, like a loser, because she just wasn't tough enough to make it convincing. She wasn't leather-hided like Shikamaru's father had been, she couldn't pretend to be that cold.

What felt like hours later, she heard a furtive knock on the door, and then the creak of the hinges when she coughed while trying to tell whoever it was to come in. In a weird way, she hoped it was Kiba, even though she knew he was in absolutely no condition to do so. It would be nice to see him for herself, though.

"Ino-sensei?" her visitor whispered. "Are you awake?"

No such luck, though. Too short by a good third, and a girl too.

"Yeah," Ino said, sighing. "I can't really sleep. Shouldn't you be curled up somewhere?"

Haruka came out of the shadows and sat in Hideo's chair as though all the bones in her body had dissolved. Her shoulders slumped with her, and she looked just as exhausted as everyone else.

"I can't sleep either. I can't stop thinking."

"That was brave, what you did back there. I'll make sure Takeshi thanks you when he gets a chance."

"He already did," Haruka said, distant, like it didn't matter. She was squishing around a stress ball in the palm of her hand, but it looked more like rote habit than anything. "It was nice."

"So...are you okay? What do you want to talk about?"

"I wanted to ask Kiba-sensei but...he's still out of it. You go into people's heads, right?"

"Yes," Ino said, carefully, wondering where Haruka was going with this. "I do."

Haruka looked around in the dark, then back to her ball. She sighed.

"Is it...could it be possible that maybe you went into that guy's head...but the eyes ended up with me instead when you came out?"

Oh, Ino thought. She'd forgotten about that.

"No, kiddo. Those are...those are your eyes."

"I was afraid of that," Haruka said, disappointed. "They went back to normal about an hour ago, I don't know why, and I thought maybe...it was just temporary. I...I didn't...I don't..."

"You don't want them, do you?"

"It's like...I've always wanted to know. I've always wondered who my mom and dad were. Like maybe they died in an accident or something. You know? I just...I always thought they'd be good people."

"He was good. Once." Haruka didn't answer. "I knew him. Your father knew him better than I did, your auntie too, so you'll have to ask them. I don't know what changed or why, but he was good when I knew him. Weird, now that I think about it, but good."

"Well, he's not. I don't want to be the daughter of a...of someone like that. I mean, I know dad is my...he's my family. He's more real than this...this guy."

"Listen to me, Haruka. You might be related to that person, and yeah, it's a nasty way to find out. That doesn't mean you are that person, or that you'll become that person. You are who you want to be. You know that."

"Uh huh."

"But you still don't want them, do you," she said, and Haruka shook her head in the dark. There were other similarities between her and the Uchihas, Ino realized. The texture of her hair, the shape of her chin, her eyebrows...but there was another person mixed in there so thoroughly no one had ever guessed.

"It's called the sharingan," Ino said, finally, "and I guess it's useful. I can tell you what I know, and I can't promise you'll feel better about it. But can you promise me something?"

"What?"

"When we get home, when we all get home...talk to your dad, okay? Tell him about it. Tell him everything. Don't try to hide it, don't keep it a secret. You'll feel better, I swear. This is nothing to be ashamed of. You didn't do anything wrong...it's just a weird twist of luck."

Haruka nodded. That was good enough.

"So...what is it?"

OoOoOoO

The sharingan, Neji fumed, and the Uchihas who'd spawned it, seemed to be the greatest curse ever visited upon Konohagakure. At least as much as the Kyuubi, who despite being the calamity of the prior generation, hadn't been able to extend its disruption over nearly as long a time and still had managed to redeem itself somewhat through Naruto. Including the internecine massacre that had claimed the bulk of that clan and the casualties incurred hunting down the Akatsuki and the ensuing war with Amegakure, even the death tolls weren't all that dissimilar.

Worse, however, were the lasting scars it left with the survivors.

Everyone, it seemed, was eventually dragged into the tragedy whether or not they were meant to. Even the first Hokage hadn't been immune, forced to defeat and expel the other founder of the village, and if you believed the rumors, it was entirely possible that the entire incident with the nine-tailed demon had been a direct consequence of that battle.

Certainly this particular Uchiha hadn't been spared the curse, and among the rest of his peers he counted at least three that had nearly given their lives to save Sasuke's. Including himself, and his chest and shoulder still ached sometimes where he'd been impaled.

There were more, if you considered those who still believed he could be saved.

He'd known from the first that Sakura would be hurt somehow if ever the Uchiha reared his head again, but he'd never expected her to actually be here, to actually be in a position to confront him head-on. She was already hurting, he knew, and he was regretful only in that their argument had been cut off before he'd been able to explain himself. Not that he really expected her to be reasonable about this.

He was forced to divert his thought for a moment as Shikamaru directed the team to climb the ridge before continuing. They were maybe ten, fifteen minutes away from the outpost now, having covered the return trip at nearly twice their original pace, and he was thankful they'd all agreed to move as quickly as possible.

Even more so since Hinata had made her distress call.

It wasn't too hard to figure out, and Shikamaru had still left his earpiece unplugged, so he'd heard all he needed to. Hinata had said they were fighting a few kilometers away from the outpost, and yet there hadn't been a single noise in the background, which meant she was somehow separated from Sakura, which meant Sakura had gone and done the one thing he really, really didn't want her to do.

Something bright flashed against the horizon, momentarily washing out the stars in its glare, and Shikamaru called a stop.

"This is close enough," he said, tossing a pill into his mouth and biting down on it. "Last chance to prepare yourselves. I don't have to remind you who we're fighting, but we can expect to have to deal with the mangekyou side of the sharingan, which if you remember is something of a pain in the ass. Both because it's powerful as hell and we still don't know everything it can do."

"Normally I would recommend clones," Neji said, and he had to fight the urge to leave the team behind and see just how badly Sakura had gotten herself into trouble. "However, I seem to remember he was able to see chakra."

"That limits the utility, yeah. Shino, you might still be able to confuse him with an insect clone, but I don't want him to even know you're here until it's far too late for him to do anything about it."

Shikamaru knelt and scraped a line in the dirt at his feet with a kunai. With his other hand he tossed a handful of grass above it, and designated the two as the ridge and the forest, respectively.

"He has pretty large chakra reserves, so you're going to drain him dry, first chance you have. He'll realize that if he spots you or any suspicious concentration of bugs, so you're going to stay hidden behind the ridge as long as you can. Keep an insect clone decoy closer to the edge of the ridge so you have more warning in case he does come after you, and keep clear."

Shino adjusted his sunglasses, still as strange as ever in the darkness, and nodded.

"I already have most of my swarm dispersed ahead of us; if he has not noticed them yet, I will begin burrowing them gradually near the battlefield."

"That's an even better idea. Neji, you stay with Shino."

Neji cocked an eyebrow and crossed his arms.

"What? You realize I have the shortest range on this team."

"Yes, I do," Shikamaru sighed. "I want you on the high ground because you can also close range faster than anyone here. Besides which, you know Sakura and Hinata both and can probably work your way in there without throwing either of them off."

Well, Neji thought, that was reasonably accurate. Still, he needed to be there as soon as possible.

"Very well. I assume I will be engaging early."

"Sure, go nuts, but only once I've managed to distract him to let you through the door so he can't take you out on approach. Besides which, Temari and I have something worked out. We can't use clones but there's something I've been meaning to try."

"Oh, hell no," Temari said, groaning. "You don't seriously mean you want us to do that again."

"I know you're not a fan, but it'll work. It's night so I haven't got any restrictions this time around."

"I...trust...you," she said, her eyes narrowing into a glare even as she said it, "but the last time was not pleasant. I'm not doing that again."

Shikamaru showed her something that was almost like a smile.

"Yeah, it won't be like that. Everyone clear on our approach?"

They were, despite Temari's misgivings.

"Good. Neji, coordinate yourself with Hinata and Sakura when we get there. Shino, you know your job. If you can do that, we'll have won. Temari, we already talked."

Shikamaru stood, and it was a sort of understood signal. Shino was already moving up the hillside, and Neji followed him closely. Another flash over the hillside, and Neji realized that soon he'd be within range of the byakugan. It wasn't particularly comforting, but at least he'd have a reasonable idea of what was going on, and what he needed to do to deal with it.

Below them, Shikamaru and Temari had already entered a full-out sprint, heading directly for the conflict, and he and Shino were forced to move at least as fast to keep up. Shino motioned that he would move even further in from the cliffside, and as he angled away a skittering cloud of droning transparent wings burst from his coat, coalesced, and silenced itself as the illusion installed itself over the writhing mass of beetles.

Neji shuddered, but ran alongside the doppelganger anyway.

When they were just a kilometer and a half away, his byakugan came to life, and he swung his focus ahead to where his wife and his cousin were fighting for their lives. He couldn't afford to lose either one, and he hoped he wasn't too late.

It looked as though a giant had carved a seat out of the hillside. Where a ravine had once been there was now only a sinkhole of collapsed stone and pulverized clay, a pit excavated by Sakura's knuckles. And she was, to Neji's infinite relief, still digging. A wave of fire shot towards her, and she quenched it under a plume of dirt launched by her fist.

Every move she made was marked by a golden surge of chakra, a flashing tide of light that crossed her entire body only to concentrate in a single knuckle or the very edge of her foot. Every contact was a firework, a blinding detonation of her energy that showered sparks across his vision. She was pyrotechnic, and so distracting.

Behind her, Hinata retaliated, a dim, constant glow compared to the strobing violence of Sakura's blows. Her constant harassment seemed to keep Sasuke at bay, warning him off every time he came too close, her chakra whipping in behind him if he tried to escape, and boxing him in any time Sakura had a chance to strike.

They were both beautiful, they way they moved together, and a slow, confident smirk began to creep across Neji's face as he realized how frustrated Sasuke had to be. It was strange, though. Besides the normal distribution of chakra, pulses would shoot to Sasuke's remaining eye and then retreat unused, over and over again.

It was worrying. The mangekyou was unpredictable, and that was the only thing it could possibly be. Perhaps the injury to his other eye had disabled it?

That theory was put to rest a second later, as Shikamaru and Temari scrambled up to the edge of Sakura's crater and attacked straight away.

Knives of wind whistled down on Sasuke at the speed of sound, converging on him from a broadside of Temari's extended battle fan, only to be torn apart in the turbulent glare of another fireball. She attacked again, even knowing how easily the carefully ordered chakra of her element was thrown into disarray by the chaos of Sasuke's fire. Next to her, Shikamaru had settled for throwing various knives, a weak and ineffectual attack at best.

Sasuke's chakra system flared again, this time with murderous purpose as the channels in his chest and neck engorged and discharged their entire contents into his left eye. Neji let the byakugan drop for a moment; it was like staring at the sun, and when he could use it again, he saw nothing but black fire rippling over the plain where his other two team-mates had been. They'd vanished without a trace, and he rather hoped that was a result of Shikamaru's plan and not Sasuke's.

A blistering hot shock wave rolled up over the lip of the ridge, and he hid his eyes in the crook of his arm to protect his eyes. Next to him, Shino let the back half of his insect clone fall open and there was a furious buzzing as the beetles beat their wings to vent the excess heat before closing formation once more.

Sakura and Hinata hesitated in that moment, thrown back by the heat, confusion throwing their normally perfectly ordered chakra into slight disarray, and Sasuke turned back to attack.

Now or never.

Neji leapt into the crater, feet sliding through ten feet of sand on landing before he found firmer rubble, and the distance between himself and the errant shrank in an eye-blink. His fingers found their targets, forcing his will through Sasuke's open, unwilling tenketsu. Neji stopped mid-strike, as the familiar pattern of kawarimi surged through Sasuke's system, and rocks tumbled to the ground where he had stood.

"Are you all right?"

Sakura punched him lightly in the kidney and scoffed. She didn't use much force, thankfully.

"Of course I'm all right, lover" she said, still angry, while Hinata kept a quiet lookout, "I told you I could handle it. You and I will have words later."

Sasuke reappeared, his back to the pitch black conflagration that was darker than the night, and he was lit by less sinister fires in the pit below. The calm Neji had assumed would always be with the Uchiha had vanished.

"Him?" Sasuke screamed. "You picked him over me?"

Hinata cried out in warning, and light flashed through Sasuke's body, rising through his chest, pulsing through his head and congregating in his right hand. Sasuke charged.

Neji had always been fast, fleet and agile to the point that the destructive nature of the jyuuken was almost superfluous; if he had chosen to learn regular taijutsu instead, he would have been no less successful. He'd worked at it, improving it and challenging himself, matching Lee pace for pace because damned if Lee was not the fastest, craziest combatant Konoha had.

And yet it wasn't enough, somehow.

For the first time, Neji saw a blur through the bykugan, a blur of blue-white lighting and crackling force that left the sting of ozone creeping in the air, a blur which, for the first time, he could do nothing about.

He turned, not even fast enough to track the movement with his suddenly clumsy body, and saw the stuff of nightmares.

Still holding the power of the skies in his fist, the Uchiha's bloody hand protruded clear through the hole in Sakura's chest where her heart had been.

OoOoOoO

A/N: updated a day early because I'll be out of town.


	6. 5: Village

Examination: Village

Time slowed.

Neji's control faltered, and with it so did the byakugan.

He didn't care.

In the centre of the crater, Uchiha Sasuke finished his morbid business, his hand wrenching free from Sakura's breast amid a glittering cascade of liquid rubies. Shock overrode Neji's every instinct; every last drive from his basest animalistic tendencies to the complex patterns of his training failed him as her blood spun in the twilight, trailing from her killer's hand into the dark. Sparks danced among the drops, singeing them into smoke where they touched; sparks that lingered around her form as she fell away.

Even as he ran to hold her, gravity had taken her in its unforgiving embrace and dragged her against failing knees to the ground, her hair floating upward around her face in an impromptu shroud. She shuddered in his arms, convulsing as her desperate muscles sought direction and found only the immolating electricity that had burned out her core.

Small fires surrounded them, the burning detritus of battle become accidental votive pyres as Sakura died.

For the first time in his life, Neji was at a complete loss.

The seemingly bottomless well that had furnished him with ideas and plans over the course of his entire existence was dry. No words came to him. No possibilities, no considerations, no future.

His hands moved on their own, clutching her against him as he stroked the hair away from her face as though to clear her vision, as though she could still appreciate the gesture. He'd done it a thousand times, maybe more, as she read next to him, curled against his side, too distracted to notice. He'd done it as they lay naked in silent celebration of mutual accomplishment. He'd done it as she smiled, shyly acknowledging for the first time that maybe they could be something more.

Her face, even frozen in death, had a peace in it, her mouth parted every so slightly and her deep green eyes just a little wide, as though in wonder. She was wonderful, endlessly curious, analytical and poetic at once. She appreciated the world on a deeper level than he ever had, seemed to understand the mysteries of the world and accepted them for the wisdom they offered.

But her eyes had gone cold, iced over, unnaturally still and forever staring past him at the greatest mystery.

He couldn't imagine it, couldn't see any way the universe could exist without her.

Grief struck him down more surely than any simple sword stroke, and Neji bent across her. She was still warm, and despite his deepest ingrained wish to deny reality in the hope that he could return her to life, her blood was rapidly cooling between his fingers, leaking away, out of her.

This blood that had been so hot, potent in the way the sun melted snow and brought leaves and life to the smothering silence of winter, potent in the way the storms of high summer blasted rain across the fields. She was life incarnate.

The world went dark with her gone. Fires dimmed; the stars snuffed themselves out in lamentation. He could do nothing but touch her face, her lips, her cheeks, wishing for just another minute, another word, calling her name in futile elegy. Ambition, desire, even justice fled him, and Neji found himself a hollow husk, weeping out what little remained within.

Nothing else seemed to matter.

"Neji."

The memory of her voice rocked him, and for the first time since his father, his last remaining parent, had left him alone in the world, water welled in his eyes and threatened to unman him. He didn't care.

Never again would he hear her call for him, searching for his presence when she came through the door. Never again would she scream frustration at a mulish refusal, or whisper her affection into the corner of his neck. Never again would she lose his name in mocking laughter, or in the throes of passion.

"Neji," the memory whispered again.

Words failed, sounds faded, the wind stalled. Nausea contorted in his stomach, pain crushed his lungs, and his vision blurred beneath the weight of his utter loneliness and his harrowing misery and the tears they brought.

Her corpse rolled in his arms as they gave out, and without her impossible strength, her limbs spilled about her in artless ignominy. Unable to breathe, he crawled across her to rearrange them, trying to provide her with what dignity he could.

Crying to himself, he shut her eyes with his fingers, closed his own and mourned.

"Neji," she whispered. "Open your eyes. Look up."

He had so little will remaining, so little concentration, so little control that he was drained, but the sound of her voice gave him the imperceptible impetus he needed to obey the ghost.

At first he saw nothing. Darkness had closed him off from the world, surrounding him in a tarry, obsidian desolation without beginning or end, a infinite void to swallow his sorrow.

The sound found him first, the distant rustle of a vagrant wind, and as the light grew overhead, it began to snow.

No, not snow. White petals.

Petals like fat tears, indented at the wide end, that danced on the wind, capricious and unassuming. Petals not quite as white as they first appeared, petals that seemed familiar, a long lost song from a time forgotten. Petals that fell in a blizzard across him as he knelt, clinging to his arms and Sakura's corpse in a fine dusting of just the vaguest pink.

The darkness receded, losing ground against this gentle storm, and her angel coalesced from the flurry.

"Neji," she said again, and she smiled, small and sad as he found her eyes, "you need to wake up."

He reached for her, knowing he would find nothing but air, but she took his hand, clasped it in cool fingers.

"This isn't who you are. This isn't your grief. This isn't how you would be."

He startled, nearly pulled back his hand in reflex, but her grip was strong as she descended to face him, desecrating her own body with her knees.

"You would want to avenge me. You would be enraged, Neji. I know you, and you're better than this. You wouldn't rest, wouldn't mourn until I'd had my justice."

There was something soothing about her words, something about the admonishment in her voice that pushed away the pity and the impotence that still gripped at his heart and lashed black tentacles against its beating.

"This isn't me," she said, in a low whisper. "I'm still out there, in the world. I need you to come back to me."

There was something out there, something she needed him to go to, something she needed him to do. Something he'd forgotten.

He opened his mouth to ask, but the question in his face said all he wanted to first.

"Sssh. Then I'll help you remember who you are."

She kissed him, and pulled away. With her went the darkness, and they were in a field of trees, the both of them still weathering the same incessant fall of petals. This was a memory, a kind and pleasant reminiscence violated by the corpse still lying at his feet.

"I quit ANBU," he heard himself saying.

"What? Why?" she said, blinking in disbelief, pushing herself off his chest. Her corpse lay just beyond her; she didn't seem to notice. "I thought..."

"Three to six month deployments were desirable when all I had to return to were more interminable meetings with the elders. Hinata and Hanabi can be pleasant company, I suppose, but they are overshadowed by everyone else."

"You're not making sense."

His arms lifted away from the folds of his hakama and gathered around her waist, pulling her back towards him.

"I have better things to do with the time I do spend in the village these days. Better reasons."

"You're terrible at this, you know," she said, but blushed a little anyway. "Just say it already."

"Three months away from you was more taxing than I thought it would be. I think I love you more than I thought."

He hadn't quit or even taken a sabbatical for anyone else, not in all those six years. Wouldn't have. He'd never thought her absence would have antagonized him as much as it had.

"You didn't have to do that," she said, pleasure and dismay mixing in her voice even as she burrowed into his clothes. "I know how important it is to you. I mean, you fought the elders so long just so you could get away from your clan duties here, and your friends are..."

"I wanted to," he said.

"I just don't want to be the one who holds you back."

He shook his head.

"That isn't what I need to do any more. It was an escape no longer necessary."

She smiled and reached up, brushing petals out of his hair and then tangling her fingers there.

"So do you need me?"

"No," he said, and shushed her before she could react. "I don't need you. If you disappeared tomorrow I would survive. If I needed you, what good would I be to anyone? I want you, Sakura. I want you to choose to be with me."

"...you're a terrible romantic," she said, hiding her face in the folds of his robes. "But I want you too."

He held her as they listened to the serene susurration of the falling heralds of spring and the fluttering of tiny wings learning to fly. Her breath whispered hot against his neck as she climbed him, draping her arms over his shoulders. He met her eyes, coy and half-hidden as they were, and let his own drift to her mouth when hers went astray in the same direction.

She smiled again, this time as open and sincere and outright happy as he'd ever seen her, and he could still feel her smiling as he leant his lips against hers.

He closed his eyes, and the memory faded, sucked away again into the returning darkness. Sakura was gone again, and so too was the storm of petals, leaving only the cadaver that had usurped her image to exploit him.

"I can't break it," she whispered in his mind. "It's too powerful for me to help you any more than this. But you can, I know it. Find me, please."

At first his limbs refused to move, still bound by the crippling agony of loss. But he remembered, gritted his teeth, steeled his muscles and bellowed into the faceless darkness.

Sakura's body decompiled, fracturing into disarray.

OoOoOoO

Sakura never had time to figure out just what had happened to Shikamaru and Temari before they'd disappeared.

Hinata's warning cry punctuated Sasuke's insane ranting. Lightning crackled to life in his left hand, and as Neji dropped to his knees in complete paralysis, she knew exactly what Sasuke had done, and what he intended.

He began his attack at the exact instant the pulse of super-concentrated chakra reached the soles of her feet, and she launched toward him in a desperate race. Fire burned in her side as she slammed into Sasuke, his powered fist just grazing her ribs under her arm, but the burn was worth it as her open hand connected with his shoulder and stopped him cold.

Stone cracked underfoot as the force of their collision ran through her, and as she directed the energy of his assault to the side in a tumbling throw, she chanced a look backward. She thanked the gods as the only evidence of injury was a deep red burn that slashed across Neji's right cheek, and as Sasuke rolled back onto his feet and swung his sword back out into attack position, she knew her husband had somehow become a liability.

"Fine," she said, letting her voice drop dangerously. "You want to know why I chose him? Because he's there when I need him! Because I know he's not going to leave me, and because I know he gives a damn about me!"

Her hands contorted themselves through seals, independent of each other, one hidden behind her profile as she turned to present Sasuke with a fighting stance.

She crouched, moving the chakra for the prepared techniques within her body while still sending pools of yet unused chakra to her feet and hands to ready herself for combat, and surreptitiously leaned back just enough to touch Neji's forehead with her index finger.

And then she exploded.

A hundred different versions of herself poured into Sasuke's conscious, more than enough to overload anyone's ability to cope. Some dashed in headlong so close together that they overlapped, fists back and raging forward, others flew in aggressive earth-bound vectors for aerial strikes, and still more Sakuras prepared ninjutsu or threw storms of shuriken, kunai, or explosives.

Sakura herself felt every one of Sasuke's ribs fracture as her knee slammed his sternum through his spine, and it was strangely cathartic, even when his form dissolved into smoke as she landed.

Sasuke decapitated her; she vanished in a flurry of petals. She threw him to the ground and tore his arm away; his body split into a nest of snakes that slithered into the darkness. He incinerated her; her ashes reformed behind him. She crushed his skull; he was still standing where she'd thrown him, waiting for a clear shot. She still stood between him and Neji.

"Hinata!" she called, "Cover!"

Luminescent whips twisted through the space between them, forcing Sasuke away as Hinata wove her web, and her friend followed up by filling the crater with a dome of pitch black, an inky shadow that blotted out the fires still burning and hid them both in its depths. She found Neji by memory, even as she sealed the bleeding on her sore flank and trimmed away the useless and burnt tissue.

"Come on, Neji. Fight it, you have to."

She made more seals, this time using both hands to economize her remaining chakra, and bound together the sides of the slash in his face. She wasn't sure if it would scar or not, but it was still fairly deep and burns were tricky. Frowning, she wiped the blood from his cheek and probed the illusions he was under.

It was still too much for her. The mangekyou was eating at his mind, and the most she could do as his first tears fell was to project a memory into his fading consciousness. Maybe there were too many trees. Maybe they were too pink. Maybe he'd find the missing threads of himself in the moment they'd both realized neither of them had anything left to prove to each other.

It was all she could hope for.

Sasuke seemed trapped in the jaws of some enormous, invisible monster. Ebony teeth and tongues slashed at him from the ground, and the stars shimmied and split as transparent fangs ripped down from above.

"Bloody hell, Nara," she heard Temari shouting, "the next time you do that give me some goddamned warning!"

Shikamaru grunted in response, and a new wave of wind and shadow gnashed across the ground as Sasuke dove between them, driven back by the unseen knives that threatened to rip him apart.

He moved right, and Shikamaru's shadow curved around him. He retreated, and Hinata cut him off. Temari's wind blew through the remaining gap, shredding a furrow through the dirt and two trees. It ended at a scorched line where he'd countered her with a wall of fire that obscured him and let him slip away from all of them.

Instinct told her to leap in as soon as the fire cleared, force him back off balance long enough for the others to get back into position, but Neji was still vulnerable. He stirred, only barely, the tail end of a sound that might have been a word escaping him, but that wasn't going to be nearly enough.

Sasuke emerged from the fire on his own, wary and clearly having shaken himself free from Hinata's darkness. His eye swiveled toward her, tears of blood spilling from his lower eyelid.

"Me," he said, in a dry, wretched whimper, and she could almost see the sad, forlorn child he'd once been looking out at her from his remaining, abused eye. "You said you would follow me! You said you loved me!"

"Once upon a time," she said, falling into a defensive crouch in front of Neji. "That was when I still believed you cared about us. Maybe you did, even. You threw us away, Sasuke."

"I didn't have a choice!" he shouted, and in the background, through the smoke, she could see the shifting shapes of her allies picking their way around the conflagration he'd left behind him. "I had to get stronger!"

Stall for time: the child was being devoured by the maniac again.

"You always had a choice," she said. Keep him talking. Keep pushing Neji towards the light with the thin stream of chakra she held against his forehead. "We all got stronger. All of us, together."

It didn't work. The fire was back in Sasuke's eye, murder lighting it, and Sakura braced herself.

"It should have been me! Not him! You lied to me! Just like everyone else!"

He lunged, and her fists pulsed with her remaining strength. Not like before, though. She'd burned so much chakra on the surgeries, on the genjutsu, on the one-handed seals, on fighting him alone, on trying to bring Neji back. She knew she was fading.

Before he could attack again, a new voice rang out, imperative and laden with disappointed admonishment. A voice she knew well, and one that shouldn't have been there.

"Stop it, Sasuke," Naruto said, and amazingly, Sasuke obliged.

He crossed his arms and began a slow descent into the crater.

Sasuke shuddered in recognition, and slowly raised a trembling finger as his face twisted through a dozen conflicting emotions, the same as when Sakura had first confronted him. He settled for rage, and all uncertainty ceased as he stabbed his finger at Naruto with vicious force.

"You! You killed Madara!"

"So I did," Naruto said, and shrugged, never slowing his pace, closing the distance step by step.

"What right! What right did you have? He was mine! He helped kill my family! He made everything wrong!"

Naruto stopped, taken aback, and his sapphire eyes hardened and burned with a fury to match Sasuke's insanity.

"I had every right! He was a threat to everyone! Everyone I know. Everyone I care about! He attacked us, Sasuke, and I -- we -- dealt with it. The world doesn't revolve around your vendetta!"

"After him, I had nothing left but vengeance," Sasuke said, voice cold but his personal demon browbeaten into temporary submission. Confusion and hurt warred with his insanity.

"You had everything anyone could want," Naruto said, and continued on, gravel crunching underfoot with every step. "You had friends."

"And you always could have come back to the village, you know," Sakura said, quietly, still confused, but unwilling to let Sasuke see that. "Especially since you apparently took care of that old snake you left us for. Until...until yesterday, you hadn't committed any crimes, you hadn't done anything too wrong."

She chastised herself as she suddenly remembered Haruka's biological mother, but it was too late to change the words. Until whenever he'd turned on that poor girl, she amended mentally.

But it wasn't as if Sasuke had heard her, either. Naruto consumed his attention, and they were nearly toe-to-toe now.

"I was supposed to avenge them," he said, grinding out the words between clenched teeth, the demon crawling back. The fingers of his free hand clenched over his missing eye; he looked to be in incredible pain, and Sakura was certain it wasn't entirely physical. "You took that from me, you idiot. You weren't, you weren't supposed to be...that...strong!"

The last word exploded out of him, and two things happened at once.

Sasuke's sword whipped out, blindly, at Naruto's head. Naruto's form blurred and faded, and the amorphous white blur of Hinata's white jacket flickered in the space where he'd stood, tiny flashes in the dark only just suggesting her application of the jyuuken.

Hinata's tiny hands touched the inside of Sasuke's left elbow and the inside of his wrist before the betrayal had entirely registered. Even so, she was forced away as the rage took him and he slashed at her with newfound focus.

"I'd hoped for more than that," she said, as she danced back to near where Sakura guarded her husband, and frowned an apology with her eyes as Temari and Shikamaru resumed their interrupted pattern. "I'm nearly done, I think. I don't have too much left, and he won't fall for that again."

Sakura knew she didn't have much left either at this point, but she nodded for Hinata to retreat and catch her breath. She would have liked to follow, but neither could she leave Neji.

"Why aren't you helping me?" Sasuke screamed at her, and she turned too late to get an exact fix on where he was coming from.

A dumb mistake was all would take to get anyone killed. No matter how good you were, no matter how smart you were, how much experience, how much strength, it was the dumb mistake that eventually claimed everyone.

The worst kind of dumb mistake was the one made through inattention, distraction, and Sakura realized that she'd committed that sloppiest of errors as she watched the point of Sasuke's sword gleam with fire as it came toward her. She was unprepared, too preoccupied with Hinata's deception and flight and Neji still kneeling, but any one of the hundreds of tactics she might have used instead would have required more time than she had.

So she froze and waited to die.

Neji roared.

He uncoiled, a tiger striking, and in her paralysis she could barely feel the rush of air as he melted around her. One leg looped around in front of her, and his hand found her shoulder even as it passed her face, and brushed her down and away with incredible tenderness for the speed it was traveling.

Sakura blinked, steadied herself as she discovered her hands against Neji's back.

Looking past him, Sasuke's weapon occupied the space she just vacated, except for the two fingers Neji had pressed up against the back of the blade near its midpoint.

"Never again," he said, and the metal began to mutate.

Not much at first, and Sakura very nearly missed it, but something shiny fell off the blade, glinting in the firelight. And then another piece, and another, until she realized that they were flakes, drifting to the ground like so many dead leaves. Stress lines appeared, deepened, and became fractures.

The sword broke, landing in the dirt next to an oddly shaped dagger that Sakura hadn't noticed before.

"Bad move," Temari said, ripping the activation cord from a flare enchantment.

A phosphorescent flash filled the crater, momentarily blinding Sakura as her eyes struggled to adjust. Her body moved as Neji lifted her without any apparent effort, and swung her into a new position.

When her vision cleared, she was behind Sasuke, securely held in Neji's protective embrace. Elation shot through her -- he was back.

"Figured he'd eventually go for the two of you," Shikamaru said, sitting down on one of the larger surviving boulders. An idle hand tossed his remaining chakra blade into Sasuke's new, perfectly defined shadow, the remaining half of his sword still shivering in the air while its master stood, paralyzed in the grip of Shikamaru's trap.

The air filled with the chittering of thousands of articulated carapaces, and a second shadow descended upon the last Uchiha, this time a ravenous, iridescent swarm of chakra beetles coming to feast.

The kikaichu gorged, leeching life from him with such ardor that it leaked from them. Tiny lights flared to life amid the swarm, beacons of wasted chakra glimmering from their anuses as they stuffed themselves beyond satiation.

At least, until they stopped, and buzzed in anger as they were denied access to their bounty. Try as they might they were forced away from Sasuke, sheathed in a second golden skin that surged forth from his body as he began to rise away from the ground.

Everyone stepped back as the field expanded and glowed in the twilight, a pallid imitation of the sun not yet risen as Sasuke climbed higher. New features appeared within it, ethereal bones, and spectral flesh, holographic as they shimmered and shifted. Even Shikamaru's trench knives had been torn from the ground, pushed away by the towering creature that now surrounded Sasuke, leaving him and his ghostly colossus free again to move as he willed.

"I was hoping we could avoid that," Shikamaru said, and Sakura was pretty sure she agreed.

OoOoOoO

With dawn came the birds.

In ones and two, with whistles and chirps, they reached out to each other in the secret songs of simple creatures. Even when the sun lurked beneath the horizon, beneath the curvature of the earth and the deciduous jacket that Ho no Kuni wore, they roused at first light, as they always did, and welcomed the new day.

No exception was made for the hospital of a riverside town halfway between Konohagakure and the border, and as the first fires of twilight glowed a chalky cyan against a few fingers of low-lying cloud, a blue-and-white flycatcher stalled out of flight and alit on the sill of a high window and twittered out a song.

On her over-soft hospital mattress, Ino roused beneath the thin sheets and realized as she blinked her way to consciousness that she'd somehow drifted off.

Now that the painkillers and the endorphins had worn off, she became further aware of just how ruinously sore she was. Everything ached, and even looking for the source of the pretty little tune coming from outside her window provoked twinges and cramps in muscles she hadn't been aware existed.

Even lifting her hands to rub the sleep from her eyes hurt, and as she let her arms relax back to the bed, she found she didn't have the energy or the motivation to bother moving them again.

Something shifted on the bed, not too far away, and she hazarded a look despite her protesting neck and the agony that still lingered in her gut.

Haruka was still where she'd been the night before, sitting at her bedside, head resting on curled arms, the scattered remnants of a pony-tail no longer pristine spread across the sheets behind her. For an idle moment, Ino wondered what had happened to her own hair-tie, but it seemed a silly and petty thing to worry about now.

There were still too many questions unanswered, things she didn't particularly want to think about, and the amount of time she'd spent unconscious meant she was entirely ignorant about the important things. Things like whether or not they were really safe, or if they'd run far enough.

In any case, there wasn't anything she could do about it now.

If Sasuke had snuck over the border to finish the job, she was pretty much a sitting duck at this point, lamed beyond being remotely useful for at least a week's time -- probably more. As loathe as she was to wish her experience on anyone, she hoped Sakura had been able to find Sasuke and deal with him, somehow.

She molded a small amount of chakra, as much as she dared, and laid the blue glow in her palm against her stomach. The pain ebbed, and she imagined it flowing outward, around the contour of her body and leaching down through the bed, away from her. It helped, a little, and she tried to sit up.

The bird outside twittered and she heard its wings flap as it took flight, and she envied it for its freedom as she failed and gave up.

The second attempt was more successful, and though the new pang provoked a cringe which provoked her damaged eye to complain in turn, she was happy just to have some control back. No doubt a nurse or a doctor would come to discipline her later, but she'd deal with that when it came. It didn't help that she could feel her innards shift in ways she was sure wasn't healthy.

She let herself settle onto her pillows, and the pain eased away as she became accustomed to her new position. At least this way she could actually see more beyond the window besides a small slice of sky, and it was nice to see trees again, even if only as dark silhouettes against the slowly retreating stars.

Ino sighed and tipped her head back. There really wasn't anything else to do.

"If she's bugging you, I can probably get her to move," Nanami said, punctuating her arrival with a yawn.

Ino brushed her hair away from her good eye -- realizing further she'd have to change the way she did her hair since she only had one to work with now -- and found Haruka's team mate only just leaning around the corner from the hallway.

"No, she's fine where she is, I guess," she said, waving the girl in. "She wanted to talk, earlier. Dai said he'd arranged rooms for everyone, though, so what are you still doing here?"

Nanami took a step closer, and leaned down to peer at Haruka.

"We never left, actually. Kiyoka's still sleeping in Kiba-sensei's room. I got up to use the bathroom, but Uzumaki here was gone so I went to look for her. Plus I went to check on Akamaru. How long has she been here?"

"She's been here since...I don't know, actually."

"Is she okay?"

"Well, I think so...I'm sorry, I didn't have time to make sure everyone was all right after we ran out of there..."

Nanami shook her head, and waved a couple fingers towards her face. It took Ino a second to understand she was pointing to her eyes, and when she looked up and met Nanami's gaze, the girl blushed, a dark pastel against the pale walls.

"I'm screwing everything up today," she said. "I don't mean to...like, your..."

"Don't worry about me," Ino said. "I'm doing fine."

"What I meant was...is she okay okay?" Nanami said, dropping into a whisper. "I kind of said some stuff that might not have been totally cool. I mean, I didn't make fun of her or anything but she was pretty upset. I just hope she's not mad at me."

If Haruka heard, she didn't move. Nanami played nervously with a short lock of brown hair and wavered from side to side on her feet. Her eyes were soft, still a little red, and flicked around the room as though she couldn't find any one thing to look at.

"I think she'll probably be alright. We had a good talk. What about you?"

"Me?"

Ino tried not to laugh as Nanami pointed to herself, puzzlement evident on her face.

"C'mere," Ino said, the old feeling returning, the one that told her to talk to everyone. "Sit down already."

Nanami hesitated, awkward without the space or the ability to exercise her habitual energy, but sat sheepishly in the chair next to Haruka anyway. It wasn't long before one of her knees began to bob in time with some unheard rhythm.

This wasn't her responsibility, really, Ino knew, watching as Nanami tried to make herself comfortable. She didn't really know Kiba's team that well, besides seeing them from time to time on the training grounds. They were his apprentices, and she had her own to worry about.

And at the same time, they were just genin, still just beginning to cope with the world they'd signed on to. A world which would probably never know true peace, one too consumed by greed and corruption, inflamed by old rages and ancient hatreds. If Uchiha Sasuke had first abandoned and then betrayed the village, it was a symptom of the greater disease of the world.

Even if Kiba wasn't in any position to do his job at the moment, she was. Even if it hurt, she'd cover for him, because that was the way things were done in Konohagakure, and she was convinced it was the right way to do things. Other villages could boast and bluster about their potency and their power, but when it came down to it, that raw ability and murderous strength had nothing on the community Ino was a part of.

"So: are you okay?"

"Sort of," Nanami said, and she glanced back at the door she'd come through. "Mostly worried. I mean, I've never seen him get hurt like that before, you know? He never gets hurt. Ever. Now it's like he might...he might..."

Nanami's tortured grimace spoke of innocence lost.

Ino remembered meeting Sarutobi Asuma for the first time, towering and cool, pulling smoke from the tail end of a burnt out cigarette before crushing it under a toe and smiling that broad, gentle smile of his that spoke of confidence and competence. She remembered thinking she'd gotten lucky pulling him as her assigned teacher. He was invincible.

Had been.

"Hey," Ino said, and her voice was still raspier than she would have liked, "he'll make it, this time, I think."

"What if he never walks again? What's he going to do? What am I going to do? They're going to give us a new teacher or something but it'll never be the same. And, like, he's like me! If he can't walk or use his arms he'll probably go crazy. I would."

Ino let her babble, let her unchain the story of anxiety told by her taut-wound body. Told her that she didn't think Kiba would become paralyzed, tried to explain that his muscles were still mostly intact, that they'd repair with time and some pretty horrific scarring. He might lose some strength, maybe, but knowing Kiba it was doubtful it'd keep him down for long.

It seemed to help. Nanami's voice quieted back down to something somewhat more calm, but then she drew her knees up, hugged them, and mumbled something into her lap.

"What was that?"

"I kinda...wish I was more useful," she said again, only daring to meet Ino's questioning gaze for a fraction of a second before looking to the floor.

"Why would you say that?"

Nanami sounded miserable, and Ino knew she was finally getting to the core of things.

"I couldn't do anything back there. Like, I can fight, a little, but Haruka's better than me. I can do some genjutsu and it's normally me that does stuff like clearing illusions and whatnot but I couldn't do anything to help anyone this time. I tried so many times but Kiba-sensei got hit anyway because he couldn't see with anything but his nose because I couldn't do it."

Despite the soreness that bloomed in her shoulder, Ino reached out and just managed to touch her fingers to Nanami's foot.

"It wasn't your fault, kiddo. You're not at the level to compete with someone like that. Not yet, not for a long time. Hell, I'm not."

"But that's my job, on our team, and I couldn't...I just couldn't do it."

"Doesn't matter," Ino said, "You're not at fault, and I know exactly how you feel."

"You got us out of there," Nanami said, insistent.

"Granted, but that's not what I mean. You know how I'm a medic, too?"

"You saved Kiba-sensei from dying right there, yeah. Thank you."

"Well, the first time it really, really mattered? I couldn't do that. Nanami, my teacher died in my hands, while I was trying to save him."

The memory was far from pleasant, and Ino winced -- twice, as her dead eye reacted poorly. The shock of the admission seemed to get Nanami's attention, and she stared before realizing what she was doing.

"So yeah, I do know how you feel," Ino said. "But I made a mistake, afterward. I don't want you to make the same one."

"What's that?"

"I was telling myself some of the same things you are. That I couldn't do it, that it was my fault, that I was useless. I spent months thinking about it, trying to figure out what I'd done wrong when I could have been getting better. We even went out, and got the guy who'd done it, and still I couldn't get rid of that feeling."

"Yeah?"

Ino nodded, slowly.

"Yeah. Here's the kicker, too. Asuma-sensei dying...it didn't even hit me as bad as it did one of my teammates. It changed him, and for a while he was obsessed with revenge and wouldn't talk to anyone. Even today, he spends most of his time far away from the village and I never get to see him much. And I should have been there, to talk to him, to make him talk to me, but I wasn't because I was too busy wallowing in my own misplaced guilt. And that's something that still bothers me."

Even curled into a hurt little ball, Nanami was one of those people who couldn't stop moving. Like she'd said, she was just like Kiba, and her toes flexed and curled in her shoe beneath Ino's fingers.

"So what do I do, then?"

"So you have a choice," Ino said, and smiled. "You can worry about being useless and weak, or you can tell yourself that you're going to be stronger, and then go and do that."

"Can I...can I learn how to fix people too?"

"How's your chakra control?"

"Um, good. Not as good as Haruka or anything, but Kiba-sensei says better than him. I think he says that just to make me feel good, though."

Ino snorted.

"He wasn't kidding, he's got terrible control. All he can do are big, destructive techniques that take a lot of raw power. Details are beyond him. I bet you're good enough to learn the basics, and you'll only get better with time and practice."

"Really? Thanks!"

"Sure you can. If Takashi can do it, so can you."

Come to think of it, it'd be good for Takashi to demonstrate what he could do to Nanami. Teaching her and practicing together would cement his own skills and resurrect his confidence, and really, Ino had been wanting to see more interaction between teams for a long time. She'd have to remember to set this up whenever it was they got back home.

For the first time since she'd come in Nanami looked hopeful, almost cheery, like the girl Ino had watched nudging her teammates as they dropped into the well in Sunagakure what seemed like an eternity ago.

Nanami moved to stand with enough enthusiasm to startle Haruka in the process, and hustled her groggy teammate out of the room before she could so much as ask what was going on.

Ino supposed the new, final solitude was a good thing. Being the only adult for six traumatized kids was exhausting.

Especially since she wanted nothing more than to curl up in front of a fire with some hot chocolate and be thankful for the fact she was going to see her thirtieth birthday after all.

OoOoOoO

With dawn came the light.

Light that was cold, thin, and pale as it crept over the low horizon of the valley, spilling slowly through lowlands and weaving through the trees as it went. Light that was as yet too dim to counter the stars yet still strong enough to recolour the sky; light that heralded the promise of a new day and a rising sun, and portended the death of the night.

Shikamaru rose to his feet and watched the coming of the light with a chilly caution, jaundiced as it was through prism of Sasuke's ephemeral cocoon. It towered over what remained of the battlefield, the torso, head and arms of a colossus with topaz flesh. It was a creature of pure will, molded by it's maker's insanity and made manifest by the crimson eye that still burned visibly in the air above him. It was anguish given form, and no birds sang in this dead land as the last victim of the Uchiha legacy screamed his hatred into the morning even as his eye wept blood to match the wound inflicted on its former partner.

A hurricane of transparent knives slashed against it, whistling with the pent up fury of an angry mother nature, but to no avail. Red lightning coursed through the impermeable skin of chakra surrounding Sasuke as a storm that would have leveled acres of forest was turned aside. Shikamaru shielded his face from the debris that whipped around him. Further away, Neji ushered Sakura out of the crater, moving together under the cloud of roiling dust kicked up by the attack, clinging to each other like the drowned.

Temari landed next to Shikamaru, and she turned aside and spat into the crumbled rock and bone dry soil, disgusted and disappointed.

"Doesn't look like I can get through it," she said, her fan folded and slung beneath one arm, but still ready nevertheless. "So now what do we do? Regroup?"

"Shouldn't be necessary," Shikamaru said, transfixed by the spectacle looming before him. He began to pace to one side, skirting counterclockwise around the perimeter of Sasuke's spectral armor. "It doesn't look very stable."

"You're sure? It looks like it's holding. I think."

She followed a few steps behind, steps even with a balanced readiness, her eyes flashing in the dusky twilight as the red storm continued unabated around Sasuke.

"I think if he could attack like that, he would have by now. Especially with those two that close. I think Shino managed to hurt him a fair bit."

A tendril of Shikamaru's retreating shadow retracted towards them out of the crater, shivered once, and vanished into the dissolute blob beneath him once it had relinquished its control over the knives it had collected. Shikamaru sheathed his weapons, and there was a hum as Shino appeared next to him. Or possibly Shino's clone, since another version was standing next to Hinata in the distance, who was brushing hair back over her shoulder.

"The kikaichu know their job is not complete," he said. "They are agitated, but I can confirm the Uchiha is a much reduced threat. If he were rational at the moment, I would suspect he would be planning an escape."

"Me too," Shikamaru said. "But if he were rational he'd have taken off after he lost his eye. Either way, this ends as soon as he comes out of there. We just have to be ready until he does."

"You're certain," Shino said turning hidden eyes towards Shikamaru and the woman standing next to him, his voice naturally flat, with so little inflection it was hard to distinguish between a question and a statement.

Temari grinned.

"Yeah," Shikamaru said. "I'm pretty sure. He can't have too much left after all the fighting we've done and what you did to him, Shino. And whatever that is, it has to be burning a lot of what's left in his reserve. Whatever this is to him, this looks more last-ditch than anything."

"You have a plan, then."

"Same as before. Tell your bugs they'll get to finish eating in a minute."

"I see," Shino said. "I will wait for you, then."

Shino excused himself and vanished, leaving Shikamaru and Temari to wait out Sasuke's temporary invincibility.

Night was a strange time to be a Nara, Shikamaru thought. Strange in that night was, in effect, nothing but an enormous shadow, one large enough to span half the globe. Night was the earth's shadow, and, one would assume, a playground for anyone who could use shadow anywhere near as well as his clan.

The irony of it was that it was probably the second-hardest time of the day to manipulate shadow in, after high noon, when shadows were at their smallest. After all, shadows were defined by the light around them, and in the absence of that light, it took a phenomenal amount of effort to make his shadow do what he wanted it to do.

Without the fires burning in the crater and the occasional, judicious use of flares and explosive tags, he would have been out of this fight long ago. If it weren't for the fact Sakura and Hinata had already started fighting, he would have preferred to wait out his vulnerabilities.

But with the dawn came the light.

And with that light, Shikamaru could be a puppeteer unparalleled.

Sasuke's jutsu was failing as he weakened, expended what remained of his reserve. Parts of it began to flicker and decay. Ghostly flesh melted away in places, exposing spectral bones before Sasuke forced it back into existence. Temari made things worse for him, waving her fan through a trio of broad arcs to crush Sasuke under the pressure. The walls around him faded and buckled in a rippling cascade of crimson lightning, and he began to fall.

The last Uchiha landed unceremoniously on all fours, and instinct and training pushed him through a roll, placing him precariously back on his feet. Miserable as he appeared, swordless, bandaged, one arm limp from the elbow down where Hinata had severed the channels that delivered strength, he was still dangerous, and Shikamaru had already finished the seals by the time Sasuke lifted his head to orient himself.

Ten kilometers to the east, a brilliant arc of molten gold lifted above the low cradle of the valley below. Saffron bloomed everywhere in the valley, touching every plant, every stone, every mote of dust. The river caught the light and burned orange, glittering with diamonds between the long, skeletal shadows of the parched trees scattered around it.

Shikamaru's back glowed the colour of a sodium fire as he turned away from the sunrise, and he let himself smile as his shadow stretched clear across to the other side of the crater, its edges scalpel-sharp and ruler-straight. He felt it come into being, an effortless stretch of his imagination, so unlike the burden of groping for it in the dark, and it expanded as Temari flicked her open fan into the dirt behind him to add its shadow to his.

Sasuke froze mid-step. Hinata moved one of her hands, and the invisible lash cut a bloody line across Sasuke's face, maiming his remaining eye in the instant before he was overcome by a wave of irritable, chakra-eating beetles.

Shikamaru had a hard time figuring out when exactly Temari had recovered her fan from its assisting position. Sasuke thrashed beneath the swarm, trying to free himself, but then Temari was on him, eyes glittering with the cold hard glint of vicious determination, and her folded fan stretched back. In another second, she'd have flicked it open with an attendant razor of wind to cut him in half.

She very nearly did, if not for Sakura's interference.

"Wait," Sakura said weakly, reaching out over her fallen ex-teammate even as Shino's sated beetles burrowed and buzzed away.

Temari's foot came down on Sasuke's good hand, hard, breaking fingers against the stone. Surprisingly, Sasuke made no sound even as the bones cracked and cuts appeared.

"You're kidding," Temari said, wary as she stooped over her fallen opponent, a hawk covering her kill.

"He has to go, Sakura" Shikamaru said, wandering closer and re-attaching his paralytic shadow to Sasuke...just in case. "It's not only our genin we lost here, but we stand to lose more if someone decides this is a good pretext for starting more trouble."

More war was the last thing anyone needed, and as nice as things were now, it was far from stable. Every short-sighted daimyo and lordling had their eyes on some prize or another, sought advantage for their personal and national armies with the services of the ninja, and that was the way of the world.

War begot war, and he wasn't going to risk it. Wasn't going to risk allowing anyone else he knew fall prey to it.

"Wait," she said again, staring at them with beseeching eyes. She was still weak, as she knelt beside Sasuke, and Neji helped her down when it became clear she might not make it on her own. She made some seals, apparently unsuccessfully, and looked back to Neji, who had knelt next to her. "Can I borrow some chakra? Please?"

Shikamaru's eyebrow shot up in perfect synchrony with Neji's.

"Sakura, he tried to kill you."

"I know!" she said, tortured, and she buried her face in his arm, clutching his torn, dirty sleeve in a fist. "I know and it's not right and I'll say it right now that I was wrong before and fine we have to do this but please, please let me try something. I went ahead because I had to know, and I'm sure there's more to it than this. He's not...he wouldn't have..."

Her voice dissolved into an inarticulate cry, and she wept softly, surrounded on all sides by stony silence.

Neji didn't say anything, and Shikamaru watched with a low, humming caution as his brow wrinkled beneath his hitaiate in thought, white eyes closed. He said nothing, but extended his palm to her, swirling with the soft blue glow of his unfocused chakra.

"Thank you, Neji. Thank you."

Shikamaru shared a wary glance with Temari as Sakura made the seals again, touching one hand to Sasuke's bloodied temples, and using the other to draw upon Neji's proffered gift.

"There," she said after a while, looking up at the assembled team in turn, before leaning close to Sasuke's body. She let go of Neji's hand, severing the stream of chakra, but gripped his fingers again when he began to pull it back towards himself.

"Why didn't you ever come home, Sasuke?" Sakura asked, in a whisper. "Why didn't you ever try to even talk to us?"

Silence answered her, and Shikamaru yawned. Temari's fingers drummed impatiently on her fan. Somewhere else, Hinata clasped her hands together and waited on tired legs beside Shino's impression of a statue.

When the answer came, Shikamaru had to strain his ears to hear it, and even then it was broken by the ruin of Sasuke's voice.

"Couldn't...anyone. Couldn't trust..."

"We waited for you," she whispered. "We looked for you, why couldn't..?"

"Lies," he said, and for the first time his voice wasn't eerily calm or burning with the incensed rage of an uncontrolled animal. Whatever Sakura had done seemed to have worked. "Everyone lies, everyone...village killed...clan. The clan wanted...to kill the village, my brother killed... them, Madara killed them. Can't trust anything. Anyone."

"I don't...I don't understand," she said, and sat up. Neji wiped a tear from her cheek as she let herself rest in his arms.

Whatever Sakura had done, she'd stripped away the anger and the calm at once, the two traits that had defined the Uchiha since Shikamaru had first seen him. There was nothing left but the broken, blinded body, and the thin, hurt voice that emerged from it, tired and young and lonely and _frightened_.

"Needed to kill...to fix everything...couldn't kill Madara...failed my brother...failed everyone and I don't..."

In a moment of dark sympathy, Shikamaru understood. He'd been to that place, if only for a short while, knew how consuming it was, knew how his usual petty desires had been pushed to the background. He knew how the fury had prowled in the corner's of his mind day after night after day, never letting him rest, driving him ever forward in pursuit of his teacher's killer.

And even though he'd been successful, it had taken him years to properly figure out all the meanings to the last words of advice he'd been given. Oddly, watching the crippled Uchiha speak, listening to him and pretending not to, he had the creeping sensation that he'd not yet learned everything Asuma-sensei had wanted him to learn.

"What about the girl?" Sakura was saying, and her voice still hitched from time to time, but she carried on with her last rites.

"All lies," Sasuke said. "Everything is lies. Everything is illusion. Had to fix everything so I lied...made us. Tried to...but I couldn't stop...thinking...couldn't be happy...failed...had to go but...made...us. Us."

"What about us? Me? Naruto?"

His face contorted with the mention of his name, and Sasuke's voice shifted and strained as the insanity began to hammer at the restraints thrown against it. He descended into incoherence again as the dissonance between his vengeance denied and the friendship and the love he'd secretly longed for swelled. Who knew how long Sasuke had lived in his own private universe afterward, to dull the pain of the lies that had been told to him by everyone he'd cared about -- everyone but his friends, who he'd discarded in pursuit of those untruths inflicted upon him.

Shikamaru's moment of sympathy cut short and he sucked on a tooth, trying not to think of anything.

Sakura quieted Sasuke, touched his shoulder.

"That's enough," she said, quietly, and then pressed her fingers against his head again. Sasuke fell silent, relaxed, and she whispered into Neji's ear.

Neji touched Sasuke's chest.

The scion of the Uchiha clan exhaled once more, and expired at last.

OoOoOoO

Hinata fidgeted, fingertips dancing across each other as she tried not to move.

Old habit.

She found herself at a loss, not quite sure what to do, even though everything had ended for now. Something heavy landed on her shoulder, and she looked to see Shino standing there. He gave her a gentle squeeze and a nod, the shimmering brilliance of the rising sun reflected in his mirrored lenses.

"It's over," he said, and she heard the earth around her chitter and writhe with the movement of his beetles returning to their home in his body.

That was the surest sign, Hinata knew. As good as her eyes were, she could never be sure a battle was over until the kikaichu declared it as such, and she'd missed the certainty that Shino could provide with only his presence.

Even so.

"Not quite," she said, looking over to where Sakura wept in Neji's arms, where he clutched her against him, the most precious thing in his restricted world. She thought of Haruka, of Naruto, and of the repercussions that would affect nearly everyone she knew. "It won't be over for a while, Shino."

She met his eyes again, somewhere behind those glasses, searching for an expression buried beneath his hood and cowl, but knew he understood anyway.

"As always, you are correct," he said. "Though there is little left for me to do here."

"Go on," she said, as Neji rose from beside Sasuke' corpse, carrying Sakura in his arms. "I'll be along right behind."

As they retreated, Shino nodded and followed them, and she was reasonably certain he was the only one among those three that was paying any real attention to their surroundings.

They'd left a mess, as always. Sakura's crater, the carbon-scored scars in the rock where fire or lightning had left their mark, the broken sword, and the blood-stains would remain as testament to what had happened here. Shikamaru and Temari remained near the body of their fallen opponent, and she moved toward them, not speaking until she detected a lull in their unusually quiet conversation.

"What now?"

Temari sighed, drew her legs up as she took a seat on a dislodged boulder, and rested her folded fan across her knees.

"Damage control," she said, disgust weighing down her tongue. "We'll have to show proof that we've killed him. Frankly I'd rather just cut off his head right now and be done with it but given the way your girl there can't stop looking back, I suppose we'll wait until she's out of sight."

"Plus I'll have to take his eyes -- what's left of them -- back to Konoha so we can dispose of them properly. It'd be bad if anyone else got hold of that, I guess. But yes, damage control. We'll have two nations we're already on uneven footing with breathing down our necks over this. It's going to be a pain in the ass."

Shikamaru rested easy, with his hands deep in his pockets, but the dull stare he was giving Sasuke's body suggested he was more worried than his voice and posture let on.

Hinata found herself staring at the corpse. The dirty black sleeve wrapped around his head, the blotted garnet trails running down both cheeks, the broken hand, and the twisted arm made her think of Kiba, and Ino. They made her think of the frantic hours of the deepest part of the night, stitching in desperate silence as her fingers went slick with blood.

She wanted to hate him.

She tried. Failed.

There was nothing left but pity. Pity that ached and mourned, not for his broken body, or for his aimless insanity, or for the hell-bound path of destruction and self-immolation he'd chosen or been forced on to. She pitied him for the lies. She pitied him for his treacherous clan, for their history of resentment, for the lies they'd told him. She pitied him for the lies he'd been fed nearly every day of his life, so thick, so numerous, so contradicting that eventually he'd been unable to differentiate between the untruths and the reality of his every day.

She pitied him because he'd broken under their weight. Not now, not ten years ago. He'd broken long before then, long before he'd even been made a genin of Konohagakure.

She pitied him because he'd never trusted, not truly. Not known, or else not recognized, what friendship was, what it meant.

"Hey," Shikamaru said, after a moment's silence while Hinata had been thinking about leaving them to their dirty work. He hadn't taken his eyes off Sasuke, didn't bother lifting his head to look at her. "How's Ino?"

"She'll be all right," Hinata said. "Changed, but all right, I think. She'll make it through."

Shikamaru nodded, absently.

"She misses you, you know. That's what she was telling Sakura and I the last time we got together. Chouji too, no doubt."

He finally moved his head, looked at her from the corner of his eyes, let his mouth bend into a wry smirk.

"Yeah, it's been a while, hasn't it."

Temari glanced up the ridge. The others were long gone.

"It's what I've been telling him forever," she said, combing through one of her dusty-blonde pig-tails with hardened fingers. "Let's get this done, and then we can all go sort out our personal and national shit."

Hinata excused herself demurely and left them to it.

The journey home was nearly as quiet as the journey out, though for different reasons. They travelled at a slow, steady pace, rebuilding strength bit by bit, stopping to rest here and there. Her cousin and Sakura isolated themselves somewhat, talking in fractured whispers and despondent sighs, and she let them be.

Shino had never been particularly talkative, but it was apparent that he, too, was relieved when they met the survivors of Sasuke's rampage and discovered Kiba's condition had stabilized, despite not regaining consciousness. Akamaru was clearly glad to see them, though he looked ragged and harried. He'd destroyed the corner of the hospital's garden beneath Kiba's window, pacing out a trail among the flowers and digging small holes in frustration and impatience despite Kiyoka's insistence that Kiba was going to be okay.

He wagged his tail exactly twice when she petted him.

When she reached Kiba's room, she found herself wrapped tight in Haruka's arms.

"Hi," she said when she could breathe again, and she returned the hug with a fondness that rekindled the subdued light of her soul. "How are you doing?"

"I was worried," Haruka said, pulling at her hair with an unusual timidity as they retreated to a quiet, dark corner of Kiba's room, away from the machines that announced his thankfully continued pulse. "I'm glad you're okay, Hinata. Is it over?"

"It is. There's nothing left to fear."

Haruka looked up again, her eyes returned to the opaque anthracite of her early childhood, though without the eager fire that had once burned there unabated, they seemed now more like obsidian, a little colder, a little sharper, a little more wary.

"What's dad going to think, Hinata? How am I supposed to tell him I'm...like this?"

"Don't worry about your father," Hinata said, and the thought of him brought a confident smile to her face, a confidence she knew she could share with his daughter. "You know him. You know how he is. This won't change how much he loves you, or what he thinks of you. He adopted you without knowing who you were or where you came from, Haruka. He's always been ready to accept whatever comes with you. It's up to you to take that and make him proud, in your own way."

"What about you?"

Hinata smiled wider.

"I've been through too much to abandon someone who only ever asked me for a little love. I love you as much as I love him, Haruka."

"Ew."

"Differently," she said, and the tiny choking sound that came out of the girl almost sounded like a laugh.

"Thanks. Though, um, I didn't mean that. I had a long talk with Ino-sensei...I mean, how do I tell him something like this?"

"Oh," Hinata said, and she thought about the malicious lies that had consumed every last Uchiha, the fabrications that ran rampant through the world, the delusions of her own clan.

"Why don't we start with the truth?" she said, "And then we can go from there."

The question as to how Naruto would react, however, would have to wait for days.

Days in which Hinata kept herself occupied with tidying up the aftermath and trying to avoid dealing with her clan. In her absence, however, Hanabi had taken a liking to torturing her elders with the malicious bits of information and scandalous rumors. Only the gods knew where she found her news and gossip, but her sister's new hobby seemed to be a sadistic involvement in clan politics.

Hinata was grateful for her sister's interference, although it was frightening to behold, because it freed her to visit Kiba, Ino, and her father, and tend to them as best she could in the interim. And, at the very least, Hanabi was telling the truth, even if she was deliberately choosing the least tactful things to say.

The day Naruto was due to return, Sakura met her at his apartment, and they waited.

"I think I'd better tell him," Sakura said, after their second pot of tea finished steeping and she'd served the both of them. "Rather than both of us."

"I thought we agreed..."

Sakura shook her head.

"No, I mean, I'll tell him. And then I think I'll have to leave. It still hurts, Hinata, just thinking about it. I can't help him sort it out because I don't have the answers, and I don't think I could bear trying to answer the questions he'll have afterward. Could you handle that for me?"

In the end, it didn't make a difference.

Naruto came in through the window as he always did, grinning with the satisfaction of a bloodless victory and a deal well bargained. His grin died when he noticed the two of them, and Sakura's bleak invitation to sit.

She explained, and Hinata stayed silent, holding Naruto's hand in hers and keeping it tight in her fingers even when his went slack from shock.

"...and so...that's it," Sakura finished.

He blinked a few times, ran his free hand through his hair. Pulled off his hitaiate, pushed it across the table. Frowned, worked his mouth in silence. Sakura had nothing left to say, and alternated her gaze between his eyes and the teapot resting between them.

He stood abruptly, and Hinata was nearly pulled into upright beside him before she unwillingly relinquished his hand.

"I think...I'm going to go for a walk," he said, and moved slowly around the table, nearly tripping over his chair as he fumbled his way toward the door.

Dumbfounded, Hinata wasn't entirely sure what to do. She'd never seen him like this, doubted anyone ever had, but she stood anyway, and followed with small, tentative steps.

Naruto touched the doorknob, hesitated.

"Hinata?"

"Yes?"

"Come with me?"

Together, they wandered through the village's back roads, into the forest, to an isolated pond, disused and choked with reeds. She held his hand, and for the first time she couldn't be bothered to care what anyway saw, what anyone thought. Least of all the undeserving, pompous oligarchs that ran the rest of her clan.

And when he was done screaming himself hoarse, when he let himself fall back against a tree and shiver with the breeze and drown in the uncontrollable river of grief running through him, Hinata discovered she could be strong in all the ways she'd ever really wanted to be, too.

OoOoOoO

"Anyone care to tell me where all these flowers came from?"

Because, quite frankly, Kiba was suffocating in them. There had to be a half-dozen vases scattered around his room, perched on the bedside table, the windowsill, and the shelf along the far wall. And while he could only assume they were supposed to be pleasant, there wasn't any wind to clear the smells out of such a small space, and they were starting to get cloyingly annoying.

"Um," Nanami said, pointing to the nearest, smallest vases. "These ones we brought. Those are from your sister, those ones from your mom, and those ones over there are from Hyuuga-san. And Aburame-san. And, uh, those ones..."

"Uh huh."

"Oh, and, and. Akamaru tried to bring you a dead rabbit or something, but the nurses freaked out."

"Right, see, he knows what he's doing. I appreciate the gesture, but you're supposed to bring a guy meat when he's laid up like this, not flowers."

Nanami looked at her teammates. Haruka shrugged, and Kiyoka looked somewhat appalled by the suggestion.

"You're kidding, right?" Kiyoka said, shuddering. "It was dirty and covered in drool and stuff."

"So give it a wash and skin it," he said, and laughed as Kiyoka went paler than usual. "What do you think I do when I'm out of rations? Seriously, I'm hungry as hell and the food here sucks. Help me escape. Please."

"Oh, sure," Haruka said. "I'll stand guard while you bash your way through the walls with your bandages and your grafts."

"Or you could just steal me a wheelchair or something."

"Because hey it's not like your arms aren't completely immobilized either. No, we're not pushing you."

Nanami laughed. Kiba sighed, and twitched, unable to really do anything until whoever was in charge decided he was allowed to even attempt moving his limbs again.

"Seriously, Kiba-sensei. Your sister told us not to let you do anything that the doctors say you can't do because she was sure you'd try."

"Damn you, Hana, damn you," he said, wishing he could shake his fists in mock anger.

The worst of it was how weak me felt. Movement was excruciating when he tried, so he didn't, even though he was still taking pretty heavy doses of analgesics. Besides his shredded muscles, there were the burns that covered them, and even though much of the damage had been rebuilt through what had apparently been about eight hours of miraculous seals and surgery, he'd be scarred worse than Kuromaru by the time he got out. And that was saying something.

"No, seriously, girls, I'm going crazy in here."

The girls looked at each other, and replied in unison.

"...I don't think it's the hospital."

"Traitors."

"They might have a point," Ino said, from behind the bed curtain, before she drew it aside. She was carrying another bouquet of flowers, although even to his untrained eye it seemed considerably more artistic. "You were nuts long before coming in here. Did you tell them yet?"

"Tell them what?"

Ino rolled her eyes.

"Well, because you're sure not leading the cell in your condition."

He'd forgotten entirely about it.

"Oh, yeah, that. So starting tomorrow, you three are going to be receiving a replacement teacher, at least until I'm, uh, up again. I got my old teammates to ask around a bit and..."

Nanami fairly gushed.

"Is it Hyuuga-san? Hinata's awesome."

"Uh, no," Kiba said, looking at Haruka significantly. "Close, but no."

"Oh, no. Don't tell me you got..."

"I saw him in the outside the hospital on my way in," Ino said, smirking. "You might want to be careful what you say right now, because he's probably watching you."

"Girls, we're in so much trouble," Haruka whispered.

"Hyuuga Neji will expect to see you on our normal training grounds at five, tomorrow morning. Don't disappoint him, because you don't want to know what he's got in store for you if you show up late."

Haruka and Nanami bemoaned their fate, though Kiyoka seemed reasonably happy with the arrangement, arguing there were probably worse people to have as a substitute. Haruka's response to that was that she didn't know him, to which Kiyoka countered that he was supposed to be very good and if he was good enough for Sakura-san he was good enough for her, which swayed Nanami's opinion.

"Alright, you lot," Kiba said, trying not to laugh at them. "Go on, get out of here. I guarantee today's your last free day because he will work you probably harder than I ever did. Go have some fun while you still can."

They filed out, making their farewells in between arguments. After they'd gone, and the door had closed, Ino sat on one of the chairs.

Looked at him. He looked back, opened his mouth, shut it.

"So...I got Konohamaru to take over my team for the time being," Ino said, breaking the ice. "I'm off duty, too, until I'm back up to speed as well, although you'll probably be out of commission a lot longer than me."

"Cool," he said.

The silence stretched out again. Kiba found himself unable to think of anything to say that wasn't weird and awkward. Ino seemed absorbed by her handful of flowers, and moved a few blooms around with careful fingers.

"Sorry," they said, at the same time.

Paused.

"What for?" they said, also at the same time.

"Aw, hang on," Kiba said, "I'll go first, then. Sorry about that. I kind of screwed up back there, didn't I?"

He wasn't sure why she looked so confused.

"What? No, you didn't. You did exactly what I asked you to do, I mean..."

"I failed, Ino. I screwed up, I was impatient. I nearly got myself killed. And you, too. You weren't even awake yet by the time I was down. Three minutes, ha. I didn't last nearly long enough."

She shook her head violently, ponytail tossing behind her, and she seemed more upset than he thought reasonable, given the circumstances.

"What are you...Kiba, I'm the one who screwed up. We could have had him the first time, I just...I chose the wrong technique, I took too long. We could have finished it right then and there, you know, I just...I'm sorry. I wasted it. I owe you."

"Oh, come on. You saved my life, too. All of us."

She bit her lip, looked down.

"Hey," he said, after a moment. "Let's call it even. Sound good?"

Ino looked up with a forlorn expression, and he gave her a bit of a smirk.

"Hey, you changed your hair," he said, because she had. Her hair swept to the other side of her face now, clipped there by pins, a mirror image of her former style. She still let them fall over her face on the one side, only now it was the other eye that looked out on the world, the same crystal blue he'd wanted to see again.

"I, well, yeah. I suppose people were going to notice that, eventually," she said, sounding unsure, and he couldn't tell why.

It seemed to be a reflex, the way her hand moved to brush her bangs aside and as she parted the pale blonde curtain away, he saw the reason. She had a scar now, just off the vertical, that divided her right eye in half from the disrupted, gentle arc of her eyebrow down almost to her cheekbone. And though her eye was open, he was certain she couldn't see through the milky grey circle that had replaced a cool window of sky.

He almost didn't dare to ask.

"That's how we got away, isn't it?"

She nodded again, and it was so unlike her, so painfully shy that he almost felt as though he was talking to the old Hinata again.

"Wow. I guess I should be the one owing you."

"We called it even, didn't we?"

"That was before I knew," he said. "You're even braver than I thought."

He could relate. He'd done something like that once before, when he'd stabbed himself in the chest to rid himself of a cancerous usurper who'd infiltrated his body in battle, violated the sanctity of his self.

"Not really, I just had to think of something fast."

"I kind of know how that feels. You panic, realize you've only got one choice left. It takes guts to go through with it, even then. Whatever, I'm glad you were there. I don't think anyone else could have gotten us out like you did."

"Thanks," she said, but she still didn't sound right. And, after a moment, she pulled her hair entirely out of the way. "It looks horrible, doesn't it?"

It sounded like a trap, actually. He'd had enough girlfriends to know what a question like this one really meant, and he'd not had enough girlfriends to know what the correct answer really was. He couldn't say it was horrible, because that would just piss her off, and he couldn't say it wasn't so bad, because that was pitying. And he certainly couldn't say it looked good, because that would be lying.

"It would make me think twice about messing with you."

She glared, the dent in her scarred eyebrow and the flat dead stare of the ruined eye lending the expression a sinister dedication, and his pulse shot up. But it was the truth. It seemed to him that it was a reflection of her deeper self, like someone had scratched away a fleck of her porcelain doll surface and revealed a bit of the amazon beneath. Not that he'd ever say that out loud. Not to her.

"Yeah, like that."

"Great," she said, still scowling. "Now I won't be able to find a date not just because I'm ugly, but because I'm scary to boot."

"I would," he said, surprising himself. He hadn't meant to say that, but there it was.

"What?"

"Date you," he said, again before he realized he'd said it. There was an oddly comfortable feeling in his gut, despite the death's head glare Ino was giving him. Something instinctive, something nice about the way it felt.

"You're just saying that to make me feel better," she said, crossing her arms.

"Why does everyone assume every time I say something that I'm not serious? I mean it."

Her eyes softened a little, and her frown turned a little wary, a little careful, like she wasn't sure where to step next.

"Because you usually aren't serious, Kiba. You're so...so flippant about everything it's hard to tell when you aren't kidding."

"I'm always serious," he said, letting a slow smile back onto his face. "About everything. I just have uncommon opinions. Offer's still on the table, although you should know I'm going to be a terrible date for a while. Not being able to move my extremities does that to a man."

"Oh, I don't know about that," Ino said, with a sudden, predatory glint in her eyes that gave her grin a feline cast. "I did volunteer to take care of your physiotherapy. So you'd better be serious about this or else the next few months could be a very painful experience."

Her voice tilted abruptly, deepened, softened to a whisper.

"Or...it could be pleasant. I didn't think you thought of me like that...you know, being friends and all."

Kiba shrugged. It was about the only movement he could make.

"Hey, things change."

OoOoOoO

a/n: almost done here. Just a bit of an epilogue to wrap things up next week.

Also I don't interact much with my readers, and I apologize. Largely I use the stuff I post as a test platform for things I want to try but can't be bothered to put a ton of effort into, and it gets varying success. To compensate, I'll field questions this week and answer them in the a/n after the epilogue.


	7. Epilogue

Examination: Epilogue

For as long as he could remember, Neji had been an early riser.

There was a silent glory in the early morning, a peace and solitude. In an earlier life, it had been the only time of day he'd been able to enjoy, time away from his hated clan, time away from the reminders that had fueled his baseless, retaliatory anger.

It was still a time of serenity to him.

He woke to the distant, rolling symphony of falling rain and the pallid gray light of a darker day, gray light that greeted him with a weary welcome. A minute movement shifted the mattress beside him, and he blinked and turned.

Sakura was awake, it seemed, silhouetted against the mottled glass and a turbid sky. His eyes followed the gentle curve of her spine past the angles of her shoulder blades to her tangled coral hair. The sheets draped over her legs and pooled around her waist, wrinkled and tossed from a night of fitful unrest.

He couldn't see her face as she watched the rain, knees drawn up and clutched to her bare chest, but her head moved ever so incrementally as he roused. Lost in her thoughts, her attention returned to the window and the dreary world beyond.

Neji rubbed at his aching eyes, and sat up carefully so as not to disturb her more than necessary.

Discarded funerary clothes surrounded their bed, the black feathers of crows scattered about their nest, and he could remember the day before in vivid detail.

He remembered the procession, the eulogies, the mourners. He remembered his niece and her friends, his temporary wards, saying farewell. Sakura, downcast and subdued as the realities of the world asserted themselves again. He remembered coming home, and the both of them wanting nothing more than to forget for a while.

He moved closer, uninvited, but not rejected, and ran a hand through her hair, resting it against her arm as she return ed his gaze at last. The deep wet jade of her eyes was highlighted by the glint of tears, and he worried that she'd not gone a day without crying, lately. It was a poor start to another day.

"Good morning," he said, and though she didn't reply, she let herself slip toward him, resting against his chest.

He didn't say any more, only leaning his chin against her shoulder as he coiled around her to satisfy his overwhelming urge to protect. She took one hand in both of hers, and brushed a thumb against the underside of his palm.

"Neji," she said after some time, soft and muted, barely audible beneath the persistent patter from outside.

He kept his voice even, gentle, as she played with his fingers.

"Sakura."

"What did you pray for?"

OoOoOoO

"...part of the terms with Kusagakure were to pull out our observation teams, which we pretty much have to agree to. Still, they've been so adamant about it that they've got to be up to something. Now that the exam's over, you think you've got anyone in the area that could pick up the slack?"

"Yeah, we can probably make that work. I'll guarantee it if you can swing those teams from Kusa out to the Iwa border to shore up our guys there. Your relations with them are better than ours and if they do get caught it'll be less of a problem."

"Deal," Shikamaru said, folding up the map he'd been holding over his head and tossing it aside. It landed on the bunker floor next to him in an untidy heap among the scrolls and books piled high.

Temari traced an arcane pattern on Shikamaru's chest with a pointed fingernail.

"We have the worst pillow talk, you know that?"

"My pillow is an order of battle for Kumo," he said. "It fits."

"Smartass," she said, shivering despite being draped across him. She reached past the discarded map to grab her shirt and pulled it over her head, then stood and planted her hands on her hips. "What, are you going to lie there all day? We have work to do."

"It was your idea," he said, and then winced as she whipped his pants into his face, with just enough of a flick of her wrist to make it sting. "You're shrill today."

"I'm still pissed about you and your damn shadow."

"That was more than a week ago," he muttered.

"It creeps me out," she said, and they finished dressing.

He couldn't help but watch as she put her hair back together, and dutifully supplied the ties as he leaned against the great planning table cluttered with maps and lists, and resource books thicker than his arm. When she was done, she looked up at him, and he stared back, impassive. He broke first, just a slight quirk of the lips, and she shifted to lean against the table next to him, arms crossed.

"When were you going home?"

"With the next batch of recommendations. I guess."

"They're your friends, not mine. You should be ashamed. Seriously, what would you do without me?"

Shikamaru thought about it for a long time.

"Probably start smoking again," he said. She scowled.

"I thought we broke that filthy habit," she said, but he was pretty sure she knew what he'd meant.

OoOoOoO

"Peace," Neji said. "I wished them peace, wherever they go."

He'd also told them they'd had their justice. That their killer would not threaten anyone, any more. That their sacrifice was appreciated.

Sakura nodded slowly, a wet cheek brushing against his shoulder.

She turned in his arms, hidden in the shadows of the dawn and the incessant pounding of the rain, and her breath jumped with persistent sorrow even as she pressed her lips against his. She was slow and nearly hesitant, far from the crushing desperation of the kisses of the eve, and he replied in kind.

The mist rose and mingled among the buildings of the village, climbing and twisting through the morning. Neji watched them, errant spirits making their way home, as Sakura cried into the crook of his neck. He watched the mists twine together and play through the falling rain as he held her, and knowing even as he did that he would never forget what she looked like dead.

So he held her tight, pressed her close against him, and waited.

"And you?" he dared, as her plaintive mewling tapered away, fading into a drawn out sigh.

She sniffled, and he was on the verge of asking her to forget he'd asked when she finally replied.

"Truth," she said. "And forgiveness."

She didn't have to explain it wasn't for her. That much he understood, and he squeezed her to let her know.

"I hate this," she said, after another interminable silence. "I hate feeling this way, I hate having to remember. I want it to end, Neji. I want it to stop."

He kissed her forehead.

"It will," he promised. Vowed to do whatever it took, in his mind. "Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow, or even the day after. But I'll be here."

He felt a miserable smile curve against his collarbone and lips that whispered a thanks against his skin. As much as she despised her circumstance, so too did he. He hated his impotence, his inability to banish her ghosts, to end the haunting.

And despite the crushing weight of it, he was buoyed by her presence in his arms, to know she was there, warm and vibrant, hurt but alive. He'd said once that he'd not needed her as much as he wanted her to be with him, to stand alongside him, but it felt like a half-truth now. It rang hollow, somehow, incomplete.

It wasn't enough any more.

Somewhere since then, she'd become more a part of him than he'd ever suspected. In the waking nightmare inflicted upon him by the Uchiha, he'd experienced an amputation most severe.

All he needed was to know she would be alright.

OoOoOoO

"I don't get it," Naruto said, as Hinata picked at his cloth draped over his shoulder with expert fingers. Behind him, Haruka straightened the robe's hem, fiddling with it until she was satisfied, which was probably going to be never, judging from the look on her face. "It's just going to get messed up again as soon as I move."

Hinata smiled. It was hard to help, he was so clueless sometimes.

"Not as messy as it is right now," she said, pulling out another pleat.

She stepped back to admire her handiwork, running her own hands down her clan kimono, a delicate work of violet silk with ivory embellishments, a storm of cranes that wound their way around her body.

"And if you'd stop fidgeting," Haruka said, "maybe it wouldn't have taken so long. There, done."

A white noon sun burned through the windows of the tower, flooding the room with light, chasing the memory of the rains that had filled the entire previous week. Haruka darted around her father and came to stand next to Hinata, and without really thinking about it, she hugged the girl close to her.

Haruka nudged her back.

"I have to go find my team," she said, "They'll be waiting to see, and I have to make sure 'Nami isn't going to do something crazy again. Love you, Dad. Can't wait to see you up there."

"You too, squirt."

"It looks good on you," Hinata said, as Haruka made her way to the door.

"Well, I think it's missing a hat," Haruka called back before she left, unable to resist.

"That's what they're all waiting for," Naruto replied, waving toward the windows and the crowd outside. He smiled for a moment, and Hinata caught the grim look in his eyes in the instant before he turned to the window.

Beyond, through the leaning rays, the carved faces of previous rulers kept watch over the village.

"Naruto?"

A muscle in his jaw pulsed.

"I still can't quite believe everything yet," he said, as Hinata stepped closer, and gently reached for his hand. "I just...I didn't think... I wanted him to see this, and if I couldn't help him, then..."

"You did everything you could," she said. "More than anyone asked of you. I know you'll do the same for everyone else here, and that's what makes you great."

"Yeah?"

"Yes," she said. Naruto nodded, smile growing, on his lips and in his eyes, and she felt her heart rise in her chest. "Yes, you are. Shall we?"

OoOoOoO

The earth shook, and Sakura turned away from the ocher wave to protect her face as pulverized shore fell around her.

Quartz grains cracked between her teeth as she bit down on the end of another hard breath, and her tongue felt thick and swollen in her mouth. She made a fist with her other hand, leaned forward, and struck. Sweat stung her eyes and sand flew from her hair as she spun, stepped forward, and slammed her fist into the ground again, and again, and again.

When she had nothing left, when she could no longer feel the tips of her fingers, when she was sure she'd split the skin of her knuckles even protected in her gloves, she stepped back and tried to breathe.

Where the river had once wound its way around a sandy rise, where grasses and weeds had once started laying down roots, there was now little more than an ill-defined precipice, a steep slope that plunged onto an artificial beach.

Sakura stood in the hole she'd dug for herself, and cool, seeping water pooled around her ankles.

"You haven't come here in a long time," Neji said.

She turned, surprised. She hadn't heard him, but then she'd been making more than enough noise of her own, drowning out any sound he might have made.

"No," she said. Her legs felt a little weak, and she let herself down slowly onto what remained of the bank, wrapping her arms around exhausted knees. Neji pulled his hands from his pockets, and sat next to her. "I just really, really wanted to destroy something."

"Like your hands," he said, pointing out the obvious. She started healing the cuts and bruises, pacing herself to avoid burning out what remained of her chakra. "Sakura, I..."

"I know."

Knew he was worried. Knew he'd kept it to himself, because he couldn't help serving. Knew he'd always been forced to put himself second, and that it was in his nature.

She let her head fall against him.

"I'm okay," she said, soft, reassuring. "I promise. I just wanted to blow off some steam. I've been cooped up too long."

He watched her, bracing his chin against a palm, hiding his mouth. Only Neji could take her in, all of her, without looking away from her eyes. Who knew what went on in that head of his when he watched that way, stone-faced, scrutinizing, but she'd learned to guess.

Sakura closed her eyes, heard him exhale heavily, and snuggled against him as his hand landed on her shoulder.

She still felt betrayed.

OoOoOoO

The last thing Kiba saw before stars erupted in his eyes was his own dark reflection in the handle of his bedroom doorknob. That was less than a second before it smacked against his forehead and knocked him off of Akamaru's back, sending him sprawling across his floor. Maybe less than a second before he'd heard the knock and the muffled greeting, but it was too little too late.

He winced, shook his head, and tried to clear his vision as the lights came on.

Something heavy landed on his chest and he realized it was Akamaru trying to hide him.

"Hey, Kiba, I brought you some...what the hell are you doing down there?"

"Ow," he grunted. "Hey, Ino."

She cocked an eyebrow, and half-scowled, half-smiled as Akamaru got up apologetically and circled around her, sniffing the air.

"And here I was, thinking you'd been so good about being cooped up. Were you seriously trying to escape?"

He gave her his best impression of a puppy-dog who knows he's been caught doing something dumb. She shrugged, sighed, and knelt on one knee.

"Come on," he said. "You know it's driving me nuts in here. Hana's constantly telling me I can't do this, or that, or..."

"I don't think it's Ha..."

"Don't say it, please," he groaned. Sitting up without the help of his hands was more difficult than he was used to, but he'd been in good shape before the injury and it was surprising what one could do with core strength alone. "I have to go out at some point. I'm serious, I really am losing my mind here."

She seemed to think it over, squinting at him with something between suspicion and playfulness. Somewhere in the background, Akamaru's tail slammed against the wall.

"Okay," she said, "Just this once, you'll get your walk."

"You're the best," he said, and he took her proffered hand with still-weak fingers. She yanked him upright -- before dumping him back across Akamaru's shoulders.

"What, you didn't seriously think I was going to carry you all the way, did you?"

She tried to look sweet, but it came off as maliciously pleased more than anything.

"You're really enjoying screwing with me, aren't you?"

"Only because I'm having difficulty telling you no," she said, and led Akamaru quietly out into the hallway, keeping an eye out for anyone who might stop them.

Akamaru's mouth dropped open wide, tongue lolling, and panted even though he didn't need to, laughing in the way only a dog can.

OoOoOoO

Betrayed, abandoned, confused.

"I wanted to believe it wasn't him," Sakura said, after a while. "Anything. That he was being controlled, that someone was pretending to be him, something."

She looked up at the ridge, and the elms that topped it, the same ridge from which her adopted niece had come -- and the unnamed mother that had carried her. She waited for Neji to say something, but he didn't do more than glance at her, waiting her for to finish.

Sakura sighed.

"I just...he was more broken than I thought. I don't know everything, still. Shishou doesn't know enough of the history to tell me anything useful, and everyone who does know is dead now. So what do I believe?"

"Him, probably," Neji said, after a moment's consideration. "If nothing else, a madman has no reason to lie."

"Don't call him that."

"If you have a better suggestion."

She didn't. She made a sour face and wrapped herself in her arms, hiding in the square of her elbows. For the first time, she found she couldn't cry any more. She was too drained, too exhausted. Whether it was the exertion of ruining the riverbank or simply that she had no more tears to shed, she wasn't sure.

At least the pain was fading, reduced now to a cold, dull ache.

"How does someone break like that? How does a person...decide nothing is real?"

"It could have been me," Neji said, and Sakura snapped her head up.

"That's stupid."

"It's not," he said, and the ethereal calm of his voice grew pained. "You wouldn't believe how close I came. I had...plans."

"I don't believe you."

"You don't have to. I'm lucky my delusions were broken before they got out of hand. And, quite honestly, I do have Hinata and your brother-of-sorts to thank for that. Sakura, I don't know any more than you do, but I do know hate and lies are powerful things. Too much of either, or both...would make anyone curdle."

Sakura still couldn't quite believe it, but she caught the flicker of remorse in his eyes as he turned away to stare upstream. Her own pang of guilt thrust needles into her heart -- Neji never lied, and to imply such when he was being as open as he'd ever been was not something she wanted to do again.

She reached for his face, needing to touch him, to let him know.

"I'm sorry," she said.

OoOoOoO

"There you are," Hanabi said, her small hands shifting the door panel aside. "You and Neji have been impossible to find, lately."

Hinata looked up from her reading, and folded it in her lap around a sculptured paper bookmark as her sister shut the panel behind her.

"I haven't made a secret of my whereabouts lately," she said. "And Neji is probably exactly where he has been for the last few years."

Hanabi smiled indulgently, with an additional quirk of the lips hinting at a secretive and forbidden knowledge, and folded her legs under herself opposite the heir of the Hyuuga clan. A teapot of Hinata's favorite steamed between them, issuing a content aroma into her study, and Hanabi accepted a cup.

"I'm glad things are working out for you, then. You would not believe what the elders have been saying lately. They're angrier than I've ever seen them."

"I take it you think that's a good sign."

"You could tell?" Hanabi drank, and sobered. "Hinata, I don't think it's enough. Rokudaime or no, they're going to fight anything you propose every step of the way."

Hinata felt her eyes harden. It was an unfamiliar feeling that she'd never been so acutely aware of before, but it felt right. It was sincere, unyielding, and she knew it was entirely hers.

"So will I," she said.

"I know that," Hanabi said, and looking into her eyes was like looking into Neji's on a bad day, if for only a moment. "I know that, but I think we need to do more. We need to prepare. What you're doing...that would suffice if we were merely a noble clan, Hinata."

Hinata nodded, prompting Hanabi to continue.

"I think...you and I...we've forgotten the branch house."

She felt her back stiffen, felt her lips part with an indignant, self-righteous outrage.

"I haven't!"

"We have, Hinata. We've been isolated from them with the exception of Neji so long that we forget he is not the only one chafing under the seal. I've started talking to...well, the branch house of our family, in any case. We can help each other."

"Of...of course."

"It starts with a new seal, Hinata. Not in thirty years when the elders die off or break under you -- now," she said, and drove home the point by stabbing a finger into the table. "Even if it's just within our own family, if we start now, by the time anyone figures it out, we'll be far ahead. We won't have to do this alone."

Hinata couldn't remember the last time she'd been well and truly surprised.

OoOoOoO

Neji was looking at the sky when Sakura turned his face back towards her.

"I'm sorry," she repeated. "I didn't mean to say..."

"It's alright," he said, keeping her close. "I don't like to think about it either."

She shifted in his embrace, no longer wanting to be cradled or comforted. She'd crushed the pain to an exhausted numbness under the force of her blows, shattering it between her fists and the sand, and now even that dull, conflicted apathy was draining away with the passage of the river.

Instead, she crawled into his lap, rested her head against his chest, and closed her eyes to listen to his heart.

"Then...can you tell me what it was like? I...I want to understand."

She heard him take breath, a great, heavy heave of his lungs that testified to the weight of her question.

"It was never about power," he said, at last. "Not for me. I sought it, certainly. I stole the techniques of the main house by observation and diligence, and the elders have never forgiven me. But it's not about power. It's about control."

"Control?"

"I had none. My...fate...was ordained by the clan, or so I thought. There was nothing I could do to change it, and I hated that. I assumed it was the same for everyone, even though it was never true for me."

She heard him breathe again, and thought he'd finished.

"Sakura, stop me if I cross a line, but...I think it must have been the same for the Uchiha. You told me, a long time ago, that he left seeking the power to kill his brother."

Neji paused, waiting to see if she would stop him, but she only nodded, prodding him on.

"He had no control, in his mind, or so I believe. So long as his brother existed, his existence would always be threatened. And then, for him to find that everything he'd built up -- his power, his hate -- for it to be found misguided... Even twice, given what we know about Uchiha Madara and his methods..."

"It broke him," Sakura murmured. "Then why the girl? Why Haruka's mother?"

"Control," Neji said, after a while.

"He wanted her to be me," she said, making the last connections herself, "but he couldn't trust anyone any more. Even if she'd met him and liked him beforehand...her mind rebelled against the illusion. You can't convince a person to be someone they aren't."

She was too tired to feel anything anymore.

OoOoOoO

"Oh, gods above," Ino said, answering the knock. "It's you, you actually came. Come in. Please."

"Actually," Shikamaru said, leaning against the door jamb, hands in his pockets. "Chouji's going to meet us down at the restaurant. Wanna come?"

She was ready to go faster than any other time in recent memory.

Chouji was waiting for the them by the time they got there, already throwing meat on the grill, shifting plates around to optimize the speed at which food would change from raw to edible.

"Welcome back, both of you," she said, sitting in her usual place, on the end of the bench across from Shikamaru, who sat in his usual place next to Chouji, perching his cheek on a fist. "And congratulations, Chouji. I hear your team was promoted."

Next to her was the customary empty fourth setting: chopsticks, bowl, teacup, napkin, ashtray.

"Ah, farewell to the teaching life, for now," Chouji mused, snapping his tongs to an unheard rhythm, and she let herself revel in the presence of her brothers. "And thank you. Though I hear yours had a more strenuous time of it."

She nodded, but she waved away his concern with what she thought was a dismissive indifference. Still, she could feel Shikamaru's eyes on her even though he was sitting on her blind side -- she was still getting used to it.

"Well, we're all okay," she said. "And that's what matters. So what've you been up to, Shika? It's been far too long."

She gave her head a little shake to settle her bangs over her scarred eye, and she caught the little twitch of Chouji's eyebrow that said he knew what she was doing but wasn't going to do anything about it for now.

"Not much," Shikamaru said, and Chouji was already handing out the bits and pieces that had achieved perfection on the grill. "Still trying to keep myself sane."

"Still seeing that girl?"

Shikamaru rolled his eyes.

"Calling her a girl might be a bit generous," he said, but he smirked anyway. He turned to Chouji. "Don't say it."

Chouji shrugged, and started in on his meat.

They bickered, all of them. Chouji sniped at her being underweight, she harangued Shikamaru about the relationship he wasn't supposed to have, and he inquired as to Chouji's wife, who let slip her newfound association with Kiba.

"...finally," he tagged on the end.

"Wait, what?" she said, jabbing chopsticks at him -- but she finally felt like she'd come home.

OoOoOoO

They watched the sun set beyond the hill and the limit of the trees, surrounded by the curve of a stream Neji was sure Sakura had forgotten. Beneath the steady trickle of water, he could hear her breathe in slow, deep breaths, and it was a blessing to hear her calm again, without the aching agony of the shattered sobs that had developed a habit of breaking her stride in recent days.

"I'm done, Neji," she said, as he rested his chin on her shoulder. Small hands lifted to clasp his where they rested on her opposite collarbone. Overhead, the a few bright stars winked into being, born between the clouds.

"Done what?"

"Done," she said, half-absent, fixated on those first stars. Her hands were warm against his knuckles, even through her gloves, and he wondered if they still ached. "Done with this. I miss you, Neji. I miss talking to you, I miss all the stupid things I do around you. I miss feeling like I'm supposed to."

She turned to him, only peripherally aware of her tongue moving across her lower lip, offering him an invitation he didn't hesitate to accept.

For the first time in a while, it didn't feel rushed, didn't feel desperate. For the first time in a while, she felt something besides sorrow or the blank numbness that had filled the days. For the first time in a while, Neji didn't feel like an escape so much as a destination, and Sakura closed her eyes and drank from him.

"I miss loving you," she said, stopping to breathe.

"I wasn't aware you stopped," he said, and she gave him a sideways glance. He killed it by kissing her again.

He brushed hair away from her face, tucked it behind her ear.

"I've been foolish, haven't I?"

"How so?"

She almost didn't want to bring it up, knowing it would ruin the moment they'd cultivated together, but it was the last step.

"It's been...what, fifteen years? Since I last even talked to him. I thought...I thought I'd been able to put it all behind me, thought I'd done a better job of it than Naruto did, but I didn't, did I? I never really let go. Not completely."

She felt herself sigh, and the bindings around Neji's forehead against hers.

"Maybe so."

His breath was a warm balm compared to the stiffening breeze, and she felt herself shiver as the first fireflies winked on and began their nightly rites. Sakura worked her fingers and pulled off her gloves, and her hands were still a little red and sore.

"Neji? Take me home."

OoOoOoO

"I still can't believe you talked me into this, Sakura."

Ino dropped another box on the landing, before flattening herself against the wall of the stairway to make room for Sakura and her load.

"Oh, come on," Sakura said. "It's not like Shishou didn't teach you most of what you know."

"Hey, I didn't say I don't appreciate it. And I would say she only taught me some of what I know. Since I'm more versatile than you are."

"Fine," Sakura said, following her down the stairs. "Then I'll just say the exercise is good for you. Pig."

Ino rolled her eyes.

"Don't start that again," she said, pointing a warning finger. "You know you don't want me playing this game with you."

"Have it your way," Sakura said, and shrugged. "Hey, last boxes."

"You can have the heavy one this time."

"I have been taking the heavy ones."

"As if."

They nearly made it to the small apartment above the empty storefront when a third woman in a black dress blocked their way, hands on her hips.

"You know you're going to blow her cover if you keep this up," Shizune said, taking Sakura's box and moving it deeper into the room. Ino pushed hers into Sakura's arms the instant they were empty. "You know she probably won't do a great job of taking care of it herself."

"It's not as though I can't hear you," Tsunade said, scowling at all three of her former students from the middle of an empty room. "I think I'll do just fine, thank you very much. Now come on, we still have work to do."

Ever the lazy taskmaster, Sakura thought to herself, because it wasn't as though Tsunade herself had put in all that much effort. Hell, Shizune had been the one to locate the residence, not to mention sorting out the details.

But, even if the old woman couldn't stand the way she looked naturally, Sakura couldn't help but wonder if that sort of indolence was the key to aging gracefully. Even without the illusion that had hid her true face for years -- and Sakura was still getting used to the wrinkles and the somewhat more sunken eyes, the shifts in her cheekbones and the new shape of her jaw -- Tsunade was no wicked old crone.

"Oh, hey," Ino said, breaking open one of the unmarked boxes of prototype creams Tsunade had brought along with her, "what's all this? Can I have one?"

Sakura laughed.

OoOoOoO

From the way Haruka was dragging her feet, Neji was fairly certain she was about as close to collapse as she'd ever been. Still, he kept an even pace next to her, and was somewhat gratified to see she was still trying to keep up, and besides which they were already nearly there.

"So, uh," she said, between heavy breaths, "why is Dad meeting us at your place again?"

"For dinner. We don't want to be late."

Haruka glared at him.

"I'd be able to move faster if Kiyoka didn't just beat the hell out of me."

"It was Nanami who did that, Haruka."

"Fine, both of them," she said, and it was certain from her tone that she was still annoyed at the least. "You didn't tell me they'd both be in on it, Uncle."

Neji let her be until he was certain she thought he was ignoring her, until she'd turned her face away to huff as they made their way from street to street.

"The enemy won't tell you when their reinforcements arrive, either," he said. "A lesson you had better learn. Kiyoka only used fifteen percent of her kikaichu."

"That's probably all she needed given what Nanami did."

"That is exactly all she needed. She is becoming quite good at evaluating what amount of force will suffice. You, on the other hand, are getting sloppier by the day. This is what I am hoping to correct."

Haruka bristled, her shoulders hunching together, and he could see the fabric of her pockets stretch as she made hidden fists. He suppressed a desire to laugh, and stopped for a moment, turning around. She drew up short behind him.

"You've made not inconsiderable progress with your eyes, Haruka. It's a gift, much like mine. However, while they can show you much, and while they do give you an advantage over those without them, you've begun to neglect your other senses. Only last week you learned that you can see through clones, and Nanami exploited that, offering you two clones to ignore, and a rather well crafted genjutsu of herself. You chased it around while she conferred with Kiyoka -- admittedly, at my instruction -- all the while ignoring that it made no footsteps."

"Point taken," Haruka said, grudgingly.

"Good."

He had no doubt she'd stew in her failure and continue to be angry at him for a few days, but if he'd learned anything about the girl, it was that she did take these lectures seriously. She was the new face of a clan resurrected and renamed, and a part of his family.

She, and the Uzumaki clan, would learn to do things right, if he had anything to do with it.

OoOoOoO

Hinata found who she was looking for at the edge of the woods, near the broad expanse of a meadow patterned with a glorious multitude of mid-summer blooms. She stopped and smiled, petting Akamaru as he ran up to her, and she let him lead her over to where Kiba was doing crunches in the shade.

"Hey," he shouted, and she waved back, waiting until she was within earshot.

"How are you both?"

"Getting better," he said, sitting up and leaning forward. The scars were hideous, but he wore them well. "Still can't run, but I can walk pretty far without help. This is the first day I've gotten out here without Ino. Pity she's busy today, Akamaru's been helping her get used to having a blind spot."

"I'm glad to hear that."

"So what's up? You wanna sit?"

Hinata shook her head.

"I won't be able to stay long, I'm sorry. I had a favor to ask you."

"Sure, anything," he said, and despite the disparity in skull structure, both he and Akamaru wore the same grins. It was infectious. "Let me guess, something to do with your wedding."

She blushed, and brushed her hair with her fingers, playing with the ends.

"Yes. Well, it's my clan, of course. As always. They're insisting on a family wedding -- because they know of course Naruto has no family, besides Haruka. And I'm sure Neji and Sakura will go over. So of course my side will be full, and his empty. It's a sort of indirect insult, so..."

Kiba leaned his head to one side and cracked his neck.

"...so really, you're asking me if I can think of a way to totally mess this up. You're basically asking me to ruin your wedding."

She nodded. Kiba always knew, somehow, exactly the best way to put something, without fancy words, without thinking about it. He just was.

"Okay, well. Where I come from, the definition of family's a bit looser. I'd consider Haruka family because I've been running with her for like a year and a half now. So yeah, call me his cousin or something. Plus her team mates. And if they show up, the Aburames are going to have to. So that's Shino's family and mine. And then I'm sure the Nakamura's are going to want to come, too."

He thought about it a bit longer, but she was sure he was faking it.

"Can I bring a date? Because if I do that, she's going to bring her team mates or their families or both. It'll be a riot. No, seriously, there is going to be a riot."

Hinata laughed. He wasn't near finished yet.

"I think that would be appropriate."

OoOoOoO

Hanabi was the last to leave, and Sakura and Neji waited as she got her shoes on and found her jacket in the closet. She laid a hand on the door knob, and turned with a little more levity than she'd had arriving with Hinata and the others earlier in the evening.

"I think this'll work, Neji," she said, hope tinging her voice. "I really think it will."

"I hope so," Sakura said, squeezing his arm. "I do."

Hanabi bid them both good night, and left them to the task of cleaning up.

There was surprisingly little evidence that their apartment was now the birthplace of a conspiracy. No messy paper afterbirth, no attendant tall-backed chairs, none of the melodramatic props or the silly pomposity of cliche. Just an invisible flood of new ideas, possible paths, and, in the centre of their dining table, next to a roughly carved granite flower, a napkin sketch of a seal, annotated in Naruto's haphazard hand.

Neji picked it up and stared at it. It was more complex than it looked at first glance, and once completed, would look identical to the mark currently inscribed on his forehead.

"Hard to believe he could come up with something this complete on the first attempt," he said, and Sakura snuck up behind him, wrapping an arm around his waist.

"You're jealous that he can do something you can't."

"It's not my fault only the midwives and elders are permitted to learn anything about seals."

"Doesn't change the fact that you're jealous."

He was, actually, a bit more jealous of the ensuing, unborn generations than of Naruto's prowess with the technique. They'd wear a juuin, all of them, but one that freed them from the main house. They'd be banded birds, uncaged. Unrestricted.

"I'm glad Hanabi thought of this," he said, after a while, still staring at the planned seal. "Asking our midwife to get involved. She's new, after all. One of our generation."

"I'm surprised you didn't."

"Not really. I've been so preoccupied with avoiding the elders, with getting out and getting away I've isolated myself from the family as well. You know I'm not that good with people."

"We wouldn't be here if that were really true. You're terse, I suppose. But you'll make a good father."

He stopped, and frowned. Sakura stuck out her tongue.

"What is that supposed to mean?"

OoOoOoO

a/n: that should be all the loose ends tied up.

I did deliberately leave some things vague, such as Sasuke's relationship with the unnamed woman of the prologue, which some people have commented on. My personal conception of those events is what Sakura states in the epilogue; unable to trust anyone and unable to go home, he builds his own reality.

Someone else mentioned they were impressed I'd managed to hack all this out despite the chapters with Madara only coming out a few weeks ago, and I'd like to disabuse them of the notion that I can write that quickly. Well, I can if someone lights a fire under me, but in truth this has been in progress for considerably longer than that, and I only made a few tweaks to Sasuke's fractured dialogue as those chapters came out. After a while the manga went right off the deep end, so I gave up and appended the AU tag.

In any case, I thank you all for reading. Feedback is always welcome, and any further questions -- if you want them answered -- will probably find me if you use the e-mail link in my profile.


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